Re: inability to get insurance to release medication

When the State of Alabama first started paying for Medicaid prescriptions
they gave the patient Rx vouchers. The Pharmacist would fill out the amount
of the Rx charge and the voucher was cashable as a check! The medication
charges were audited after the drug store was paid.

The insurance companies make money by delibertly delaying payments to
healthcare providers. If they can delay payment for months on end and
collect interest on millions of dollars in the bank, well they are doing OK
for the stockholders. There have been articles in the Wall Street Journal
recently about the big healthcare management companies and their methods of
cost containment. At one doctor's practice, according to WSJ, the doctors
were having to moonlight at the E.R. as they were owed one-half million
dollars by the insurance companies.

Then of course it is illegal to give a patient a discount on his Rx if he
pays cash for it. The Pharmacist is supposed to sell it to the insurance
company including the government for the same price as cash.




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