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I went with Ticketmaster..
I closed my eyes and imagined the horror of what would be if TicketMaster were a health Insurance company.
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@HungryTuna: \"I'm sorry, we're all out of penicillin. Perhaps you'd like to try one of our affiliated prescription reselling companies.\"
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@HungryTuna: That ranks among some of the most insanely scariest ideas ever thought up by mortal man.
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Ticketmaster is winning? Seriously?
Need I remind people about United Healthcare and their $124.8 million/year salary for their CEO?
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@johnva: As many good points that you so effectively raise, I'm leaning towards the UH Is A Symptom Of A Broken US Healthcare System camp. It's like The Frog & The Scorpion.
Ticketmaster, OTOH, could be different but chooses not to be. If it ever took a time-out from bathing in the blood of children that gives it its preternatural powers.
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@johnva:
If you don't have United Healthcare and have no issue with them, why would you think they were a worse company than Ticketmaster? Are you saying we should all assume a company is bad because it's a health insurance company? I voted for Ticketmaster because I have experience with them, and it isn't positive. Case closed.
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@johnva: Health-for-profit gets my ire up, and instinctively I'd like to go with UHC on this one. Positive (or simply not-negative) individual experiences not withstanding, UHC has been \"ethically challenged\" at times: [www.eeoc.gov] [www.fiercehealthcare.com]
However, I find myself leaning closer to Ticketmaster for a few reasons:
1) UHC is not representing all private insurers.
2) There are a slew of ins companies worse than UHC, and plenty worse than Ticketmaster (HealthSouth, anyone?)
Most importantly in my mind: UHC is simply one part of a larger, very problematic industry. Ticketmaster is its own industry, and can change the way business is done at the drop of a hat. It often does so just to squeeze more out of customers.
As much as I don't like the line of work UHC execs are in, my \"as objective as possible\" self still sees TM as marginally worse.
@snowburnt: Technically kind of true, but to be fair, UHC is huge (see: [www.pacificare.com]) and for many people it is their only option. Because of the way private insurance works in this country, most of us don't actually have a choice when it comes to our insurance.. many of us don't even have options when it comes to providers (if we want our care covered, that is).
Also, using Ticketmaster is not life-or-death, as is sometimes the case when using your healthcare.
Just sayin'.. still voting TM, still feeling just a little dirty for doing so.
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@johnva: I have a feeling only healthy people are voting for ticketmaster, otherwise they would see the ridiculousness that is our healthcare system. As much as I hate service charges, and believer me I see them a lot, I hate rising healthcare costs and denial of claims. let's see, $12 service charge are refusing to pay for a $10,000 heart surgery? I'm going with UHC.
@johnva: Understood but does UHC screw people over the way TicketMaster does? I went with TicketMaster.
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@LegoMan322: When ticketmaster screws you you're out 60 bucks, when UHC screws you you're eitehr dead or massively in debt.
@LegoMan322: Yes, they do. They screw both their own customers (through systematic denial and delay of legitimate claims, etc) and health care providers. And it's worse than getting screwed on \"convenience fees\" because we're talking about people's health. Nickle and diming is what health insurance is all about, and the fact that UHC is apparently good at it just means they are good at successfully screwing people out of healthcare they've paid for insurance to cover.
@johnva: Then he must be doing a fine job. UHC is still a profit turner in this age, no guidance from them, but few others are giving that out.
TM is a bull-necked SOB of a company that loves to nickle and dime their clients, rivaling the telecoms and their billing tactics.
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UNH is bad, but they're not much worse than anyone else in their industry, and many of the problems related to that industry are too ingrained for any company to overcome, particularly due to the regulations that keep things as they are roughly.
Ticketmaster has no redeeming qualities or virtue whatsoever, and there is no reason for it to be as evil as it is except pure...evil.
@huadpe: Ticketmaster has no redeeming qualities or virtue whatsoever, and there is no reason for it to be as evil as it is except pure...evil.
I do agree 100%, but I also feel this way about ALL health insurance companies. Since I simply don't attend Ticketmaster events, I'm going with UHC.
@richcreamerybutter: The problem with \"all health insurance companies\" is that the way the laws and markets are structured today, a non-evil one cannot exist. If you were generous and honest with your terms, and sold people individual policies with pre-existing conditions covered, you would be forced out of business in a heartbeat by massive claims which would make your policies preposterously expensive.
20% of the US economy is currently healthcare. Given that people don't consume it purely in proportion to their income, a middle class person probably has to pay 20-25% of their lifetime income for healthcare (whether in premiums, direct fees, or taxes).
The only way to make the insurance markets sane is to bring that 20% number down.
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As a medical biller, I have to go for UH ftw. All health insurers are scam artists, denying good claims in hopes that office staffers are to busy to challenge denials. Unfortunately, this is true in far too many cases (not at my company, though; we pursue denials like {insert appropriate similie here}).
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Why yes. I'd LOVE to pay an extra fee for printing out my tickets on my own printer!
Ticketmaster FTW here, clearly.
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I picked United Healthcare because some people don't really have a choice but to use them (like if it's the company their employer uses). Ticketmaster can be avoided, but how are you going to handle those medical bills? Someone has to pony up - and if UH is all you've got, it makes things much, much worse when they screw up. You aren't going to a concert? Probably doesn't suck as much as not being able to get coverage for your child's heart condition, or getting them to pay for surgery.
@pecan 3.14159265: but you do have a choice, no one is saying that you have to use the company/policy made up by your boss, which means the company boss said they want this and don't want that.... I've seen policys that cover pre-existing, that there is no deductible that needs to be met, that have $5 co-pays and no co-pays on hospital and dental and vision and rx... now im not saying the health insurance companies have no fault but they really don't deserve the amount of criticism they are getting, don't like the amount your paying for your health insurance through your company, thats the amount you employer doesn't want to pay, can't get the experimental surgery, well your employer said no experimental... and yes it is a free market, don't like what your employer put in the policy, go build your own built to your own specifications, its gonna cost more than what it would on your employers policy, but its built for you and what you would want and you dont have the employer paying part of the bill... simple answer, buck up, grow a pair, and read your shit
@pecan 3.14159265: it's strange to not have a choice in a supposedly free market for an evil so unfortunately necessary in this country.
@richcreamerybutter: What makes you think this is a \"free market?\" Look up \"government subsidy\" sometime. In a true \"free market\" most subsidized industries would fail. I'd love it if the government would subsidize my industry, but we have to compete in the \"free market,\" and could theoretically go bankrupt or fail, with no bailout to save us. Yes, Thomas Friedman, the free market is a lie. The earth isn't flat, it's on a steep angle.
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What's wrong here? We're saying that concert tickets have a higher importance than peoples lives?
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@Zanorfes: In the end, I don't think it's about the worst IMPACT that a company has, but merely worst PRACTICES as a company.
Otherwise the only candidates would be healthcare, every single time.
@Zanorfes: I think some of the other folks in the thread summed it up: UHC is just another health insurer, and far from the worst even in that industry, while Ticketmaster is its own industry, and knows it.
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@HeartBurnKid uses Linux: the taint of OS's: Ticketmaster is a monopoly, and uses that power to screw over customers, artists, and venues. UHC is not a monopoly, as you can find plenty of other better (and worse) healthcare providers.
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@Zanorfes: at least someone gets it. I mean, sure, ticketmaster is a huge inconvenience, but really, \"paying 20 bucks extra to see some over-rated band in an over-crowded arena with horribly over-priced refreshments\" is not quite as high on my list of things to not do as \"dying a slow and painful death of cancer.\"
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@Zanorfes: That is pretty much it.
Times like this are when it really sinks in that the vast majority of us are self indulging, conceited jackasses.
@failurate: Exactly.
UHC is employer provided, and they decide if I live or die.
TM is event provided, and they decide if I am entertained
I'd rather be bored than dead.
Ticketmaster should have been a higher seed. Pure evil.
Ticketmaster is the devil incarnate.
Honestly, I've had UHC for 4 years now and never had a problem.
I have had UHC for a number of years now without any problems. Not that I love them, mind you, but as someone said above...they are not any worse than any other insurance company. My insurance problems have all been problems caused by the way the medical system is run in this country not United in particular. However, Ticketmaster is just a badly run company that exists only to charge fees that are beyond excessive for service that rarely even aspires to be as good as poor.
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I have UHC and too do not have a problem.
On the other hand I have used Ticketmaster and hate them with a deep seething hatred.
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@Jeremy82465: How did UHC get a #12 seed if everyone either doesn't have them or has them but has never had a problem with them?
Where are all of the people who sent the e-mails nominating them?
@Rectilinear Propagation: And on the flip side, I'd like to hear from someone who actually likes Ticketmaster. Does such a person exist?
I don't know where the insurance haters are but don't mention the words \"convenience fees\" near someone that likes live music.
publicly scalping tickets AKA \"Convenience Fee\" vs secretly scalping ICD9 charges in healthcare.... hmmm
I went with Ticketmaster because my company doesnt use United Health :-)
More people have delt with Ticketmaster than United Healthcare. As far as deplorable behavior, especially in literal Life and Death situations, United would win hands down. But as for day to day evil and obvious gouging, Ticketmaster gets the crown/horns.
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I can't make up my mind: UHC affects your health and can kill you vs. Ticket Master is just as evil, but you can elect to not doing business with them. I can't explain it, but for some reason, I hate Ticket master more.
Ticketmaster sells itself it's own tickets and jacked up the price. What the heck.
Most health insurers are an expensive middleman, jacking up medical costs. I know because I sold insurance.
For example, for 2 hours of work I made about $2,000. I sold med sups and simply signed up people for the policies. Med Sups are really a necessary costs if you have Medicare. For the next 6-10 years or more I made from 15-22% of the policy EACH MONTH. So if they paid $100 I made $15-22 just for doing NOTHING. What a deal! This goes on for years, and the actual work involved in helping clients is almost nothing.
Now you tell me that's not a waste of money. After the insurance company gets their portion, how much is left for the patient and the doctors. Only recently I started realizing what a waste.
Well, we chose the system that let's big business care for our health, so that's what we get.
I didn't have much against Ticketmaster (my ticket buying is limited to local artists and I usually end up getting the tickets from the artist or their friends).
UH on the other hand, well... they stiffed my dad, badly, on a workers comp claim. Offered a man who had been supporting his family of four on $10K a year (this was in 1995 - not that long ago) due to his injury a settlement of 25k to go away. He took it, and now he's practically crippled thanks to the 'experimental' procedure they did on his back. UH - FTW!!!!
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Ticketmaster: \"Those bastards charged me $10 for parking!\"
UHC: \"Those bastards refused to give my wife cancer treatment and she will die without it!\"
I mean Ticketmaster, seriously people? They suck but we're talking tickets for concerts vs. people's lives that are turned into business decisions. no contest.
@jmujeff: I suspect that this result, with Ticketmaster in the lead, might have to do with the Consumerist readers' demographics tilting young or something. Almost everyone young has been screwed by TM at some point, while most people don't have serious problems with their health insurer jerking them around until they actually get sick with something serious. If you haven't yet had that experience, you might not realize why the health insurers suck so hard.
i had to use ticketmaster's website recently, and their website was so broken it took 45 minutes to place ONE order. it's pathetic. not to mention the flipping gratuitous \"convenience charge\" (translation: we're going to charge you for our convenience) and extra charge for printing out your own tickets. epic fail.
Are you kiddin' me? Are people that afraid of being \"socialist\" that they have to choose some company that offers a service most people don't need?
People need health care, and the US system is just plain bullocks. It's companies like United Health Care that are keeping us from being the \"advanced\" nation we claim ourselves to be.
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AIG and PCA are the only two contenstants that can give TicketBastard a run for their money...
Not only are they corrupt, they spread it to the groups they deal with. NJ is making money off of us and they will not reveal how much. Open government my a@#, they need to be shot in the street for everyone to see
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/new_jersey_officials_wont_say.html
If I ignore the whole apples to oranges thing, its 'gotta be Ticketbastard. Granted the stakes are probably higher if your dealing with UHC than if you're dealing with Ticketmaster, but like some have said already it's not like UHC singlehandedly caused the mess that is the US healthcare system. Lots of choices out there for health insurance - not so for buying tickets. If UHC cleaned up their act and ran their business like a saintly charity, our healthcare system would still be in the crapper. Ticketmaster, on the other hand, is basically what's wrong with their whole industry. The monopoly wins, IMO.
@wheresmymind: Again, if your employer chooses UHC, they're a monopoly to you. If you develop a disease while insurered, you can't change insurers.
@johnva: I totally see the point about pre-existing conditions, but you don't HAVE to go with the insurance your employer provides. When I started my current job (my employer is the state of MD) I carefully looked at all the plans offered, and decided to keep the private health insurance that I'd been paying for myself since getting out of college. It costs me about twice as much, but I have MUCH more confidence in it as far as not getting screwed. And I'm a poor grad student making ~16,500/y. As a young, healthy, single, childless male I realize I'm pretty cheap to insure and this approach isn't as viable for someone with a spouse and kids, but I do feel like a lot of young people just look at what their employer offers and sort of randomly pick a plan, possibly based mainly on cost. It becomes a financial decision, not a health decision.
@wheresmymind: Well, insurance has gotten so expensive that a lot of people just don't have a choice.
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I need to ask all of you to think of your poor grandparents/parents that may be covered by United. Do a search for the class action lawsuits that UHG settled in New York because the company Ingenix - that is OWNED by UHG - was short changing its members and costing them more money for their covered health care. The limited income of the elderly must be more important than people wanting to go see a concert with their extra money....
C'mon - United HealthCare insists it needs to make Billion$ by denying actual healthcare to people - and potentionally killing people.
Ticketmaster just insists on making billions by being a monopoly.
All For-Profit Insurance companies are finalists for worst company always.
In my experience, UHC is like T-Mobile. They suck but not as bad as the others. I have UHC and it has been the best insurance I have ever had, but that also depends on what policies the employer decide to offer their employees. Unfortunately, I am losing UHC due to layoffs and will have to look elsewhere. It could be worse, I could be forced to use Coventry or Kaiser (do they still exist?)
I loathe Ticketmaster, but I once worked for UHC. Having seen the beast from the inside, it is more horrifying than you can imagine.
OMG - this is the toughest decision I've ever had to make. I can't decide. I can't decide. I can't decide. I can't de ARRRGGHHHHHHHH! My brain exploded.......
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I have UHC, and it's been a nightmare trying to get covered bills paid.
Granted, health care is more *important* than concert tickets, but this is not about which company is more important, it's about which comapany screws more people. There ARE alternatives out there to UHC, you don't HAVE to use them (although if your company doesn't offer alternatives you may have to pay \"out of pocket\" for them. You should be able to OPT OUT of UHC insurance at your work if this is the case and get your own health insurance through a 3rd party (although it will probably cost more) -- but that's your choice.
You don't have that choice with Ticketmaster, they're a monopoly. An unregulated monopoly at that.
Personally, I don't have any contact with UHC, so cannot vote for them.. I have had extensive dealings with TM tho, so they have to get my vote.
@Southern: Some choice ... health care coverage or eat and have a roof over my head. Hmmmmmm ... gonna have to ponder that one a while ... NOT!
i HATE ticketmaster!
Ingenix (the United-owned company that gave 'average fees' for services that were much lower than the actual averages) was not only used by United, but also by several other major insurers. So just because someone didn't have United as their insurer doesn't mean that United didn't screw them.
At one time my employer had us on United Healthcare. They weren't so bad as to be on this. I don't know of any major screw ups with them. On the other hand, Ticketmaster add cost to concerts without bringing anything of value to the table. They are legle ticket scalpers as far as I am concerned. My vote goes to ticketmaster.
I live in Canada, free universal healthcare, FTW. Ticketmaster is the biggest POS evil scalper company in the world, I either purchase from LiveNation, or only go to shows where I can pay at the door
Yeah, and how much do you pay in taxes there buddy?
Free stuff is always great when you are not the one paying for it.
Socialism FTL.
@slickdealer: Compare what a median income American pays in taxes + insurance premiums to what a median income Canadian pays in taxes. The Canadian is coming out ahead on the deal.
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I only have experience with Ticketmaster, not UHC. So although I'd like to vote for TM, I'm going to abstain. If United Healthcare is on here it's likely because they did something bad to the people who have been paying them for health coverage. When people are sick and need the health coverage they've been paying through the nose for, but instead get screwed over by the health insurance company, it's a lot worse than paying bogus fees to a monopoly because you want to go to a concert.
I have to vote UHC, especially because of their former Ingenix subsidiary. For those not familiar with it:
Ingenix gathered medical billing data and used it to set 'usual and customary' reimbursement rates. Typically, insurance covers 'usual & customary' charges and if you use a provider that bills over that you pay the difference out of pocket.
Ingenix was accused of systematically and intentionally under-reporting the rates. What this meant was that for every claim UHC paid a smaller share and the policyholder paid an artificially inflated share. It was an enormous scam orchestrated to shift more costs onto policyholders.
The New York AG forced UHC to spin off Ingenix and pay $50million to reestablish the company as an independent non-profit. Shortly afterwards, UHC settled with the AMA for $350million, basically for ripping off doctors.
Are you people nuckin futs? Let's see ... a health insurance company that SCREWS with the lives of millions of people, versus a company who's underhanded tactics may prevent you from an avenue of entertainment?
United Healthcare FTW in this case!
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Ticketmaster really deserves to win this one. Their fees are outrageous.
Really? I know Ticket Master is horrible but at least they're not in the business of killing their customers to up their profit margins.
Hmmmmm....Tickets to a concert or something that has to do with people's lives and healthcare.
Not a tough choice here, really. Don't like the price or the scalping from Ticket Master? JUST STOP BUYING THE DAMN TICKETS!!! They will clean up their act when no is buying. You do not need concert tickets to live.
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I can't begin to tell you how much I hate Ticketmaster. So when I voted for United Healthcare, I felt obligated to explain: these companies keep 50 cents on every dollar given to them. THESE companies are the reason health care in America is headed to the shitter. that's 50% of the total pie, going as pure profit, to the health insurance companies. And both Bush and Obama got money from these scumbags. Think about it, then email your congressperson. Please.
I had to go with United, but I admit, this one was tough. Ticketmaster is a monopoly-abusing giant that needs to be beaten down ASAP.
UHC all the way. Ticketmaster may be a terrible way to get tickets for a show, but UHC will cost you thousands of dollars and, possibly, indirectly kill someone you love.
This was a hard choice. I can't begin to fathom the amount or \"service charges\" and \"handling fees\" to Ticketmaster, who've been strangling the live music venue market to death for too long, but then I remembered...
In 2005, United Healthcare retroactively canceled my family's health insurance after my wife had two emergency surgeries in a month, one to remove an ovary and fallopian tube, the other to remove her gall bladder. I got a $59,000 bill. Luckily I was able to get some state assistance and settle for much less, but it wiped us out financially and emotionally for a long time.
United Healthcare wins!
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Ticketmaster is the devil.
@Brawndo_The_Thirst_Mutliator: I agree! Ticketmaster is just one Horrible Company. At least United Healthcare Tries.
@Brawndo_The_Thirst_Mutliator: and the devil can sit on a tack.