William Chirolas -- World News Trust
Mini-Med is a smoke-and-mirror concept that looks good, but is designed not to pay claims (the design of course varies -- how else to hide cost from cost comparisons -- but the employee's $60 per month premium usually covers a $15 co-pay for in-network physician office visits benefit with a maximum annual benefit of $450, and with maximum annual limits on outpatient diagnostic coverage of $300, an outpatient surgery surgery annual maximum benefit of $1,000, a hospitalization is usually not covered but if covered it might have a maximum of $1000 per day with a few days as the maximum, and if drugs are covered there would be a co-pay and annual maximum also). These plans are being promoted by companies that bill themselves as mini-medical insurers, but that are really just marketing organizations, resulting in a breakdown of the quality and frequency of health care in the United States -- but then again the private sector is meeting the request of the Bush administration for a low cost non-governmental innovative response to the high cost of health care.
Now that Aetna Inc. (which acquired Strategic Resource Corp) and and United Health Group Inc. have joined little guys like Star HRG in offering these plans, can we ever again trust being a large operation to mean you have any more credibility than someone running a marketing scam?
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http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=3632