On My Soapbox: Insurance

Okay, I'm gonna step up onto my soapbox today and rant a little about something that has always driven me crazy: insurance companies.

Insurance drives me nuts. Here are the main reasons why:

1. They're very complicated: I have a bachelor's degree from a well-known university and I edit foreign students' theses and dissertations; I'm no dummy. But I still have a hard time deciphering my benefits booklets.
2. They're very expensive: premiums eat up a disproportionate amount of our paycheck! Our dental premiums were raised so high and our maximums were lowered so much that we decided to risk it and drop the insurance. (Even if something catastrophic happened and we all needed major dental work, we'd only be out $1500 without insurance. That's a bet Lance and I are willing to take.)
   
3. They don't seem to know what they are doing: I would say that 50% of my medical bills have insurance mistakes.

My major pet peeve is the billing. So much money and time is wasted on insurance mistakes! I have to call my insurance company (who shall remain nameless, but starts with an "S" and ends with an "agamore") at least once month. Here are a few of my favorite examples:

1. When Spencer was born I was charged by the insurance company for the full amount of a second epidural. (They would only cover one.) Why? Because the first epidural I got didn't work - I was numb on only my right side. My insurance insisted that since the anesthesiologist billed them twice, I had to pay for one. I informed them that under no circumstances would I be paying for a botched epidural. It took me a month of fighting, but I won.
2. When Josh was born I was charged for a day in the hospital that I never had. (I left a day early.) Granted, the hospital shouldn't have charged the insurance company for that day, but should it really have taken me six weeks to convince my insurance company that I wasn't there that day and that I wasn't going to pay for 20% of it?
3. My dental insurance tried to bill me for two crowns, when I only had one. Nice try. That seems like a pretty big error, doesn't it? I mean, really!
4. When Spencer broke his arm (the second time!), I got a really large bill from the orthopedist. It showed that our insurance didn't cover any of the cost. What the??!? After much investigation it was discovered that the insurance had made a mistake in a code on their end. Grrrr....
   
5. And the reason for my tirade today: Today I received a bill for the immunizations Josh had in December. For some reason the insurance only payed for some of the shots instead of 100%. (And it was really weird; on some they paid 80%, on others only 40%. One was only 37%.) So I called them up and asked them why. After being on hold for five minutes (no really - I kept track) they told me they had no idea why it wasn't paid in full. NO IDEA. What is up with that? At least the man I talked to had the decency to sound a little embarrassed.
   

So my question is, am I the only one who has problems with insurance? Do I have really bad luck, or does everyone else go through the same things I do? (Or, more scary, do most people have these billing problems but just not know it, and pay the wrong (often higher) amount?) And if I'm not alone, how in the world are these companies still in business?

Maybe I'm just a tich crazy, but socialized medical care is sounding better and better to me.

Okay, I'm done. Steppin' off my soapbox and returning to my normal daily activities. No more ranting and raving.

But sometimes it just feels really good to stick it to The Man.