Women's Rights

Murray Waas, award-winning investigative journalist, reports that “Insurer [Wellpoint] targeted breast cancer patients to cancel“:

… None of the women knew about the others. But besides their similar narratives, they had something else in common: Their health insurance carriers were subsidiaries of WellPoint, which has 33.7 million policyholders — more than any other health insurance company in the United States.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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But WellPoint also has specifically targeted women with breast cancer for aggressive investigation with the intent to cancel their policies, federal investigators told Reuters…
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Many critics worry the new law will not lead to an end of these practices. Some state and federal regulators —- as well as investigators, congressional staffers and academic experts — say the health care legislation lacks teeth, at least in terms of enforcement or regulatory powers to either stop or even substantially reduce rescission.
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“People have this idea that someone is going to flip a switch and rescission and other bad insurance practices are going to end,” says Peter Harbage, a former health care adviser to the Clinton administration. “Insurers will find ways to undermine the protections in the new law, just as they did with the old law. Enforcement is the key.”
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During the recent legislative process for the reform law, however, lobbyists for WellPoint and other top insurance companies successfully fought proposed provisions of the legislation. In particular, they complained about rules that would have made it more difficult for the companies to fairly — or unfairly — cancel policyholders.
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For example, an early version of the health care bill passed by the House of Representatives would have created a Federal Office of Health Insurance Oversight to monitor and regulate insurance practices like rescission. WellPoint lobbyists pressed for the proposed agency to not be included in the final bill signed into law by the president. They also helped quash proposed provisions that would have required a third party review of its or any other insurance company’s decision to cancel a customer’s policy.
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The new law does leave open the possibility of reform in this area, these sources say. The reason, they say, is that much of the new legislation is essentially a roadmap, with regulations to be decided later…
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A senior Obama administration official said he remained confident that mandatory third party reviews of rescissions is not entirely out of reach.
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“It might take some wrangling with the insurance industry, some strong-arming, maybe even use of the presidential bully pulpit,” he said on condition of anonymity.

By all means, read the whole thing… it will infuriate you all over again. I guess we’d better hang on to Tim F’s list of Congressional phone numbers, because it looks like we’ll need them in the near future.

(Hat tip to commentor Brachiator for the link — and the irresistable title.)

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