I have seen the death panels, and thy name is "grievance review board". Allow me to elaborate...
My mother was in severe need of back surgery. Honestly, given the excruciating pain she was in, I'm surprised she didn't try to take her own life. She had an MRI that showed a massive slipped disc that was crushing her spinal card (the technical term for this is "spondylolisthesis with spinal stenosis")
Anyway, the doctor recommended surgery. But he said, "the insurance company won't pay for the surgery until you get these epidural steroid shots". You know, those shots from compounding pharmacies that gave a lot of people a fungal infection? Lucky for her, she got her shots about six months before those tainted shipments left Massachusetts. But I digress.
So she gets the shots. They're quite embarrassing; since the shots go right into the bottom of the spine, you pretty much have to be naked from the waist down. They're also very painful. And they aren't cheap, either; they need to use an X-ray machine to guide the needle in.
The result? Shots didn't do shit. Surgeon even said, "these shots will probably have minimal effectiveness due to the physical nature of your condition" - the shots are incapable of making the slipped disc stop crushing her spinal cord. So the surgeon schedules her surgery.
Then we get a call back. Surgery has been denied because "it is not medically necessary". Because literally the day before the surgeon scheduled her surgery, the insurer changed their guidelines as to what defines "medically necessary", such that in addition to the ineffective, painful, and embarrassing steroid shots, you also need physical therapy, regardless of whether PT will have any impact on the patient's condition (the exercises actually made her condition worse, partially because the therapist was unaware of what therapies are effective for spinal stenosis...and partially because exercises aren't going to make the slipped disc stop crushing her spinal cord).
So I start learning as much as I can about the spine. I start reading scholarly articles. I collect a ton of evidence and write a detailed report to her insurer's death panel - I mean, "grievance review board". After receiving my report, we were told we would have an opportunity to meet the death panel - I mean, "grievance review board" - in person. About one week before the meeting, I get a phone call that they finally approved her surgery.
What would my mother had done, if she didn't have a college educated son who was capable of reading highly technical academic research papers and collating the information together in such a manner that could convince the death panel - I mean, "grievance review board" - that surgery was medically necessary for her?