[lotsofpulp]

Aetna is known to be low quality, especially after CVS bought them. CVS has a ton of debt and I do not see CVS management to have a culture of investing in employees. They are known for their retail business, where it is typical to ride employees to the limit until they burnout.

I like sticking to BCBS insurers, such as Elevance, Regence, Independence, Horizon, etc.

[bradknowles]

Except BCBS Premera here in Texas. They're having a bitch fight with Ascension/Seton healthcare, which includes Dell Children's Center and the majority of the good hospitals and ERs in the area, as well as many doctors practices. But Open Season ended in November, so now people can't switch insurance companies so that they can actually go to their healthcare provider of choice.

And BCBS desperately wants to force you to use only their approved pharmacies, but as of late last year there is a new law here in Texas that makes that illegal. So, what BCBS does is make their preferred pharmacy "optional", but what is not optional is that you can't get any drugs from any other pharmacy until you call up their preferred pharmacy on the phone and speak to a human being to get them to opt you out of the "optional" preferred pharmacy. And imagine how hard that process is these days.

Fuck BCBS.

[bradknowles]

Aetna used to be good here in Texas. That was a few years back. I had them when I worked at Whole Foods, and that was probably what you'd call a "Cadillac Plan".

Now, as bad as BCBS Premera is, it's still better than Aetna. Maybe it's because CVS bought Aetna, or some other reason, but they've definitely taken a major nosedive here in the last few years.