Treating Swine Flu: Unprofitable!

Very short entry today: I burnt out my laptop backlight because I am on the computer all the damn time. So this is coming to you from a new machine that's still busily deleting all of its push-marketing "support" programs.

(Yeti does not NEED link to e-bay on desktop! Do not contact Yeti with offers for new Compaq products! Yeti wants to blog! And smash!)

One of the things I hear from almost all insurance customers who have been forced to file claims -- I heard it again two nights ago, from someone who'd had GradMed-style temporary insurance -- is that the absolute worst time to try to negotiate with insurance industry bureaucrats is when you've just had a staple put in your head, your blood replaced, your eyeballs rotated, etc. etc. But this is, of course, always the time they pick to deny coverage.

Case in point: Ted Rall stood in the pharmacy for over an hour trying to get his TamiFlu covered -- coughing up bloody phlegm and spreading the swine flu like a syphilitic hooker in a Navy port (no offense, Ted).

Did anyone ever really think this system over? Is anyone honestly motivated to persist in entrusting public health to people who have no interest whatsoever in protecting public health?