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ToucanLoucanHNSource author
Business & incomeExperience excerpt · English

Strictly my experience, I would much, much rather deal with the IRS than my insurance company

… Strictly my experience, I would much, much rather deal with the IRS than my insurance company. Yes, they're intimidating at first, but ultimately every person I've worked with both at the IRS and my state agency has been calm, professional, and frankly to a degree I found surprising, extremely understanding about how badly I fucked up my taxes on a number of occasions. I was never treated like a criminal; they explained what I did wrong, how they found out, what I owed, and how to prevent those issues in the future. And I was given interest-free payment plans with a one-time administrative cost to setup, that I now pay monthly. I'll be fully 0'd out in about 2 years. This contrasts sharply with my experience with my insurance company! My insurance company tries to get out of paying for every last thing they can manage. My dental insurance has a maximum pay out of a measly $5,000 per year, which seems completely backwards to every other insurance I have ever had, but what do I know. You know how fast you can crush 5 grand in dental work? …

Original discussionFinding a therapist who takes your insurance can be nearly impossible187 source comments · at import
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LO
lolinderHN

I take it you haven't ever interacted with the IRS beyond filing the standard deduction? Or interacted with Medicare/Medicaid? The only issue raised by OP that would go away if it were managed by a US government bureaucracy instead of a private company would be people running out of coverage, and that only if healthcare were subsidized universally. And to preempt the comments saying it doesn't have to be this way: it doesn't matter what if US government bureaucracies are incompetent by the design of politicians or by necessity, the point is that they are , and the idea that this case would be the exception is just wishful thinking.

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YawningAngelHN

It's also country specific. HMRC in the UK are pieces of shit I wouldn't scrape off my shoe

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LO
lolinderHN

To be clear, I'm not talking about the cultural fear of the IRS, I'm specifically referring to the idea that patterning insurance after the IRS would solve most of the issues that OP brought up: > - Have to deal with filing claims, which ultimately becomes an additional expense, since chances are you have to pay someone to do this for you. > - Get your money later instead of now. > - Have to keep meticulous notes in case you ever get audited by the insurance companies, who can refuse to issue payments if your notes don't meet their standards. This description could be lifted up and dropped in to be describing my tax situation each year. Meanwhile, I've never interacted with the kind of nightmarish insurance companies that some people have, so I'm strictly comparing two relatively painful bureaucracies, not nightmare stories about either one.

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