The Secrets of Health Insurance

Or, why I pay too frickin' much, even though I (currently--crosses fingers) have Insurance.

From commenter Emily Waters on Orac's inestimable blog.

I once trained at a call / claims processing center for a health insurance company, and the policy was in fact to automatically deny care for many, many procedures. They said that most of these procedures were in fact covered, but that the patient had to call and contest it. Since many people were too sick / confused by the system to do so within their window when you could appeal, they got out of paying many legitimate claims, thereby improving their profitability.