Eric Newhill
New
If you believe that cannabis oil is going to cure people with late stage cancer, I don't know what more to say.The Book of Life troll
Worse still if you further believe that big pharma is deliberately obfuscating the magical healing power of cannabis oil in order to maintain profits.
I have nothing against cannabis, btw. In fact I occasionally use it when arthritis in my ankle acts up. Sometimes I just use it to relax.
But here's the point, if cannabis, or any other treatment, really would save all that money and make people healthy at the same, then the people I work for/with would be all over it. We, insurance, do not want to pay for treatments that are expensive, unnecessary and/or represent health risks, especially if there are better approaches. Remember, we make money when our claims expense (what we pay out) is low. If we save money while increasing quality/patient outcomes we can lower premiums and compete better in the market while keeping some of the savings as profit.
I spent several years working on understanding the diagnoses and medical procedures and tech trends, etc. that are driving our costs. I worked with our Medical Directors (doctors that work for insurance) to identify the most affordable, but effective, means of treating patients (our covered lives who became ill). We study millions of members to understand what treatments work for which members, which doctors/hospitals are providing effective treatments, how to incentivize quality affordable care for the most people. All of that scientifically determined information is used to build our benefit structures and utilization management programs (what procedure we will cover for which conditions). I do something else now, but I know that work intimately. Most people don't know that insurance is doing that kind of research all the time. Trust me, we are not approving - meaning paying for - treatments that cost too much and don't work as wlell as a less costly alternative.
We are in no way partners with big pharma. We are their adversaries if anything. We provide a check on their attempts to peddle ineffective costly drugs.