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« Top Comment | Main | Obi Wan Kenobi... »
April 21, 2008 |Permalink |Comments (0)
Closing the Barn Door
After the Horse Needs Health Care...
Diane from Cab Drollerly takes a hard look at "post-claim underwriting."
This reality provides a nearly perfect illustration of why our health needs to rescued from the "profits before people" mania that is damaging the lives of millions of people.
Be sure to click through for the whole exceptional post.
For the past several weeks I've been whining about the mess the governor and state legislature have made of the California budget and the resultant mess they've made of the state due to their recalcitrance and ineptness. Today, however, I've got some good news. The state stepped forward in the battle against health insurers who rescinded policies when the policy holders naively filed claims under the policy.
The Money graf...
"Post-claims underwriting" is the perfect term for this outrageous practice. Let me provide a brief reminder of how the insurance companies operated this scam. Prospective customers filled out an application for health insurance and submitted the first premium payment. They continued to pay the premiums and the insurance companies cashed their checks. Then, when the policyholder filed a claim for benefits under the policy, the insurance company went back and reviewed the applications looking for even the slightest error, and finding one, rescinded the policy without paying a nickle on the claim. One consumer advocate gave an example: a woman with breast cancer had her policy rescinded during treatment because she failed to note that she had taken an antidepressant drug in the distant past. Nice, eh?