Health Insurance - Can't Afford It; Can't Live Without It

Why is it that insurance companies always seem to think they know what is better for the patient than the patient's personal physician?

I appreciate the need to keep medical costs down, what I don't appreciate is having to fight with an insurance company when my doctor writes a prescription for a medication and the insurance company won't approve the filling without the doctor completing a prior approval application. And of course you never know you need one until you are standing at the pharmacy to pick up your medication and the pharmacist says the insurance company denied the script.
WHAT? What do you mean they denied it? My doctor wrote the prescription.

Well turns out the medication is one of hundreds that requires prior authorization, which means faxing a form to the doctor to fill out, the doctor faxes the form back to the insurance company and then the insurance company takes another 48 hours to process the approval. Meanwhile, me, the patient, has no medication. And if you turn in the prescription late Thursday or on Friday, forget it, now you also have the weekend and doctors don't fill out forms on weekends and insurance companies don't process special authorizations on weekends so now 24-48 hours has turned into 96-120 hours. Well by this time I can either be gravely ill somewhere or dead.

But hey, my insurance company got my premiums on time, they just don't have to process my authorizations in any type of expeditious fashion.
Gotta love it, oh bother.....