"I Lost My Uncle": People Are Sharing Stories Of Their Insurance Claims Being Denied, And It's Truly Dystopian
This week, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed by a masked gunman in Midtown Manhattan. The words on the shell casings read "deny," "defend," and "depose."
According to AP, that phrase is reminiscent of another: "delay, deny, defend," a common way of criticizing the dystopian hell that is our American healthcare system. It's also the name of a book that dives into the ways insurance companies skirt approving claims.
The news has gone mega-viral, in part due to UnitedHealthcare's reputation. Covering over 49 million Americans, the company is one of the largest in the country and brought in $281 billion in revenue in 2023. Meanwhile, doctors, patients, and lawmakers have all criticized UnitedHealthcare for denying claims and "complicating access to care," per AP. Protestors demonstrated outside the company's Minnesota headquarters this summer over its denying claims, and HealthPartners left UnitedHealthcare's network over the insurer's high claim denial rate, per CBS News.
Once the news broke, people started sharing their own stories of claims being denied by their health insurance. Here are some of their heartbreaking stories, shared across Reddit and TikTok:
Note: BuzzFeed cannot confirm the validity of any of these stories as they're just comments from the internet.
1."I feel bad for his family. But as someone currently getting screwed by health insurance, I’m not surprised it happened. My mom has stage 4 breast cancer and has maxed out her insurance. They won’t cover anything again. My mom needs her chemo to live, and they are willing to let her die. Insurance is the devil."
2."Even though I pay for a top-tier plan, my health insurance sent a letter to my daughter explaining that they denied a claim for a one-night stay in the hospital that literally saved her life. Also, my daughter was 4 years old at the time. The letter was addressed to her."
3."I had health insurance when I gave birth to my youngest child. I supposedly had 100% maternity coverage while in the hospital, so imagine my surprise when I got a $9,000 hospital bill. They decided they weren't going to cover the bill in total and denied my total coverage because the nurses working in the nursery weren't employees of the hospital. They were contracted staff or something. I fought this bill for three years before it was decided in my favor."
"And this was with me being a fairly intelligent person going line-by-line through my documents and also working in communications for a living, so I knew how to write letters and reach out to who I needed to talk to. I cannot imagine how that situation would have gone if none of those things were the case, and it made me very aware of how many people must be screwed over on a regular basis and just have to live with it."
4."I had to get my gallbladder out after being in excruciating pain for six months. Had to pay $6k because it was an 'elective' surgery."
5."Literally just had my health insurance deny a prescription today. Went to the doctor, got a referral, and went to the specialist where I was given a trial run of some medication. Went back after the trial to tell them it worked great and go to get my prescription. 'Your insurance decided they didn’t want to pay for that.'"
6."When my ex-husband was suffering from severe depression, he attended an out-patient program, and our insurance called saying he couldn't attend anymore. It was ridiculous. I had to fight for approval to keep my husband alive."
7."I have inattentive-type ADHD. During the height of the Adderall shortage, my insurance refused to pay for the generic version even though the name brand wasn’t available at any pharmacy within 20 miles of me. I also couldn’t use GoodRx since it was a controlled substance, and I had other insurance (not sure of the legal reasons, but that’s what I was told). So, I ended up finding a pharmacy that had the generic consistently and sold it at retail price."
"Long story short, I paid over $200/month for medication for six months because they insisted that the name brand was the only one they wanted to pay for instead of the $60/month that I should’ve paid. Fuck health insurance companies."
8."I'm currently in a bit of debt due to my family's medical bills that my insurance is refusing to cover. They are the fucking worst, and I wish I had another option. For-profit companies should not be making decisions about what is medically necessary for me and my family. I'm not celebrating someone being shot, but I'm also not saying I don't understand how someone could get to that point, assuming this was targeted."
9."My insurance did not cover my jaw surgery even though it was medically necessary. My surgeon had worked with at least 13 patients that year with the same insurance, so he knew it was some sort of clause. My surgeon said without the surgery, I would lose the ability to chew by my 40s. Unfortunately, when I left AT&T after 13 years, that was the last time I would ever have a stable job in tech, and jaw surgery is a three-year ordeal."
"As a result, I'm 42 and have a very long list of foods I can't eat because chewing with completely flat teeth is not only difficult, but due to the amount of exposed dentin I have, very painful. I am finally trying again with Aetna, but the recovery for this kind of surgery and the possibility of side effects going through it at 42 vs. 28 is substantial."
10."My insurance once denied coverage for a surgery I desperately needed because it was a pre-existing condition. I waited nine months in agony only to have them reject the surgery again! I had to take out multiple loans in order to end my suffering."
11."My insurance denied a PET scan for my husband when diagnosed with the most aggressive form of melanoma stage 3. Their answer was: It’s not serious enough. We had to pay $1,500 cash to get one done."
12."We had insurance through the bank. They required previous authorization on a basic medicine and insisted I try cheaper ones first. I tried all three of the 'cheaper' ones, which caused issues and didn’t work. They still denied the original medicine."
13."I only get insurance through my employer, and my entire family is on it. One day, without any previous correspondence, they kicked all of us off our primary physicians (doctors in addition to OB-GYN and pediatrician). It has cost us a lot in out-of-pocket, and I haven't even gone to the doctor due to the increase."
14."We had to argue to my insurance that the medical necessity for surgically repairing my wife’s shoulder that was literally incapable of being returned to its socket."
15."Over the years, I have probably spent dozens of hours, if not possibly hundreds of hours, going back and forth with insurance when they have denied my household's claims they were supposed to cover. I am a data manager, so I am nitpicky when it comes to numbers. I called so much one year that they assigned an advocate for me to go through and handle my calls. They would deny stuff like immunization for my kids, which were supposed to be covered 100%, and then I would get a bill for $800–$900 from the doctor's office."
"Or not cover the bill to the amount that was in their coverage documentation. Or bill me for a primary provider as a specialist or not bill a provider as in-network when their page listed them as in-network. Without my dozens or hundreds of hours, it would have easily cost me thousands more."
16."My health insurance is literally the worst. They charge me for every single ultrasound; $400 each time and cover none of it."
17."Insurance just denied our blood labs from a standard physical for $800, and today, they denied my wife's orthotics for another $700. WTF are we even paying insurance for."
18."I've been trying to get a simple procedure approved by them for the last year with no avail, to the point where my doctor is now referring to my health insurance as a criminal organization."
19.And finally, "I lost my uncle. His health insurance denied my uncle (who was a policyholder for 22 years) a procedural surgery for a pancreatic hernia."
Have you ever been denied an insurance claim? Share your experience in the comments below or in this anonymous Google form.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
