The health insurance industry has a term for this sadistic practice. It’s called “step therapy.” If the choice is between a more expensive medication that works and a cheaper one that doesn’t work as well and might have worse side effects, the insurance company requires that the cheaper drug be used first.
One benefit to the insurance company is that the patient on the cheaper drug might die before they get a chance to use the drug that works but is more expensive. That’s money in the bank for the insurance company.
Or, the patient might be so worn down and harmed by the cheaper drug that they just give up the fight to get the drug that will help them. Again, that’s bank for the insurance company.
Can’t even describe how many times the latter has occurred to me. It’s fucking exhausting.
You CAN get exceptions sometimes but the insurance company can just…decide to change their mind, or not honor it, randomly. Or force you to renew it.
My BF gets monthly harassing letters from United pressuring him to go on a medication that doesn’t fucking exist. “Friendly” of course, very “Oh heyyy bestie, we’re your cute little gatekeepers, tee hee, and we noticed you were on this dumb little druuuug, so icky and expensive. But how about this other one, the generic? Yeah. It hasn’t actually been made available yet or anything, this has been an issue for moooonths but it’d be great if you could swiiiitch. We just enjoy making sure you make the best decisions and would love it if you just, like, became unable to hold the job that gets you insured with uuuuuus.” *Intense vocal fry*
