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Exclusive: WellPoint routinely targets breast cancer patients | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63L2LS20100422 - broken link)
Quote:
The women all paid their premiums on time. Before they fell ill, none had any problems with their insurance. Initially, they believed their policies had been canceled by mistake. They had no idea that WellPoint was using a computer algorithm that automatically targeted them and every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies, according to government regulators and investigators.
Once the women were singled out, they say, the insurer then canceled their policies based on either erroneous or flimsy information. WellPoint declined to comment on the women's specific cases without a signed waiver from them, citing privacy laws.
That tens of thousands of Americans lost their health insurance shortly after being diagnosed with life-threatening, expensive medical conditions has been well documented by law enforcement agencies, state regulators and a congressional committee. Insurance companies have used the practice, known as "rescission," for years. And a congressional committee last year said WellPoint was one of the worst offenders.
But WellPoint also has specifically targeted women with breast cancer for aggressive investigation with the intent to cancel their policies, federal investigators told Reuters. The revelation is especially striking for a company whose CEO and president, Angela Braly, has earned plaudits for how her company improved the medical care and treatment of other policyholders with breast cancer.
(Emphasis mine)
Yet some of you still want to keep these horrible companies around.
Obviously, other health care companies will be beating a path to the door of the liabilities - sorry, I meant to say "patients", of course - to offer them better deals.
In the meantime, well, - who could possibly be better equipped to take on a major insurer's legal team than a cancer patient? They'll get their day in court - or their bereaved loved ones may, but certainly someone will get a day in court sometime.
In the meantime, think of the stockholders. Won't someone think of the stockholders? Or if you're too cold-hearted to think of the CEOs, think of their children. They may grow up in a one-yacht family. Why do you hate children?
Or think of the people who make a living dreaming up reasons why people should be denied cancer treatment - I mean, who is to say acne couldn't be a pre-existing condition for breast cancer? (This actually happened.) Does anyone wish to see those fine individuals deprived of their livelihood?
The US can't maintain the world's highest administrative costs in the health care sector if insurance companies went and took care of the insured. Spending that money on doctors, nurses and medicine, when there's lawyers and investigators and collection agencies and advertising people to pay? That's just crazy talk.
Well, if the insurance company pay for these people, their costs will go up, then the premiums will go up for the rest of us. Why should I pay for other people's cancer? Makes a lot of sense. Markets work well.
Well, if the insurance company pay for these people, their costs will go up, then the premiums will go up for the rest of us. Why should I pay for other people's cancer? Makes a lot of sense. Markets work well.
Until YOU get sick and they drop YOU.
Heck of a deal for the insurance company though - collect premiums, then drop folks when they actually want get use from their insurance.
Until YOU get sick and they drop YOU.
Heck of a deal for the insurance company though - collect premiums, then drop folks when they actually want get use from their insurance.
Now THAT'S a business model!!!!!
Ken
Look at it this way. Many people own stocks of this company. They will be worse off if these guys are paid and not dropped.
In other words, if we force these guys to pay up and not drop, it is nothing but spreading the wealth.
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