It is pretty amazing how in this country, America the beautiful? Insurance companies can get away with the attrocities that they do. Take for example my wife, She has leukemia. When she first got it she had been buying insurance from the same company for fifteen years. She was diagnosed and from that moment on they raised the premium every month trying to squeeze her out. When that did not work, they found a legal loophole and told her that they were "dicontinuing the policies for her age group, with her ailment, and in this particular area" (in other words her)
We called congressmen, government officials and local gov. as well, nut to no avail, no help. Sorry I guess we are just Americans and not entitled to the same benifits as our elected officals. We talked to lawyers and they were no help as well and the insurance company walked away with her fifteen years of money scott free. Now on the same note here I am 43 years old worked hard all my life for the little pittance of a weekly check that I receve, almost a third of which is deducted for insurance.
I threw my back out a month ago and instead of spending multiple thousands of dollars with surgury with a 60 percent chance of never walking again, I went to a chiropractor who unlike the medical doctors had me back on my feet in a few weeks but alas insurance companys weasled thier way out again. They do not pay for chiropractors. I also have disability insurance that I pay dearly for and am still waiting for an answer whether they are going to pay me some lost wages, because the sickpay that is supposed to be one of my very few benifits at my job was not given to me because it was an injury and not a sickness, Huh? well here I am again I have dental insurance, I pay good money into and have for years. I payed my bill and, I dont get it, out of 300 dollars they paid 60, I needed to have a tooth extracted because I could not afford to have it fixed or saved, it cost me at the office 30 bucks and they told me the rest my insurance would cover, the whole bill was 200 dollars,I went in today for some needed work on my teeth and as I was walking out to my surprise they asked if I would like to pay my outstanding balance. I have an outstanding balance I replied? And paid 130.00 dollars, so they paid a whopping 40 bucks.
We need to wake up America, we need to nip this quick.
Insurance companies are getting away with way too much.
It is absolutely absurd the things that they are doing pretty much taking the money and running, when I pay for a service I expect to get that service, if not that is just plain theft, and from what I understand is right that is illegal and punishable in this country. If I were to come to you promising to provide a service and took your money in good faith then split, would I not be hunted down and incarcerated?
We need to wake up before it is too late.

Ok well here is an argument for the other side...

It's time again for the annual "Stella Awards"! For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico where she purchased the coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right?


That's right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy.


Here are the Stella's for the past year:


7TH PLACE :

Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son. < /B>

6TH PLACE:

Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hub caps.

Go ahead, grab your head scratcher.

5TH PLACE :

Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT, days on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming undue mental Anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish.

Keep scratching. There are more...

4TH PLACE :

Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.

Grrrrr ... Scratch, scratch.

3RD PLACE :

Third place goes to Amber Carson of Lancaster , Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113, 500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions ?

Scratch, scratch, scratch. Hang in there; there are only two more Stellas to go...

2ND PLACE:

Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000....oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure.


1ST PLACE : (May I have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos please?)

This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home from an OU football game, having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded h er, are you sitting down, $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.

Are we, as a society, getting more stupid...????