More health insurance BS

Health insurance companies in the United States are out of control, trying to control people's lives, and dictating what kind of medical help they can get.
As many readers of this blog know, I suffer from chronic pain.  For the last several months, I've been on a medication that has helped alleviate some of this pain.  I'm far from pain-free, but I'm living much better than I used to.  Unfortunately, we had to change health insurance plans, and the last time I went to get my prescription filled, I was informed that my new insurance would not cover it.  We went round and round between me, them, the pharmacy, and the doctor.  We finally were able to learn that the new insurance company will not allow people to take the medication that I've been on if they haven't first tried another drug, and so they are forcing me to change medications.  The medication I'm now having to take has been clinically shown to be less effective in treating chronic pain than the medication I've been on, and it also has a lot more side effects.  Of course, it's also cheaper for the insurance company, so I'm forced to change.
Even worse, this whole process took about a week to resolve, and I didn't have enough of the original medication to last a week, so I had to space out my doses, which, of course, has made me very sick.
Now I'm going to have to deal with withdrawal symptoms from the one drug and new side-effects of the new drug...should be a fun couple of weeks...
Something really needs to be done about these insurance companies.