Health Insurers Are Denying More Drug Claims, Data Shows | Offering a rare glimpse inside the hidden world of rejected insurance claims, new data shows a steady uptick among major private insurers.

Wait... I thought that was only supposed to happen if we had socialized medicine.

(Duhh)

From personal experience, frivolous denials are way up. Having to appeal regular covered care at a significantly higher rate than last year, during which I had a single appeal necessary. This isn't just insurance fighting pharma, it's also them trying to bleed people dry by using illegitimate denials to drive up profits.

My wife has weight issues that effect her health. Here is the thing. She has low thyroid and her tests come out as just within normal on the low side. She has other symptoms of low thyroid with hair and such and her doctor refuses to up her relatively cheap thyroid medication dosage (which we have to pay for anyway) and instead has her on ozempic. I firmly suspect shannigans like what caused the opiod epidemic. I see no reason this doctor is so adamant about using ozempic without some sort of quid pro quo. Pisses me off.

due to medication prices

There's no reason for medication prices to be as high as they are, though. Look at the prices in practically any other developed country.

I'm from Australia which uses a single payer system (meaning the government negotiates medication prices for the entire country and buys them in bulk) and some medications are literally 5-10x the cost in the USA compared to Australia.

medication like Ozempic being used for recreational weight loss.

There's a variant of Ozempic called Wegovy that's used for weight loss. That's what it's designed and marketed for.