Rescission: customers have insurance, pay premiums, get sick, companies drop coverage

:grr:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_06/018667.php


RESCISSION.... In light of the current policy debate, it was awfully nice of insurance industry executives to help demonstrate why a public option is so necessary as part of the broader reform effort. (via Kevin Drum)



The insurance industry -- you know, the one conservative lawmakers and the AMA are so desperate to protect at all costs -- has this unpleasant habit called "rescission." Customers have insurance, and they pay their premiums, but once they get sick and require expensive medical treatment, the companies drop the coverage.

And in testifying before Congress, executives of these insurers not only confirmed the rescission practice, but said they had no plans to change the money-saving tactic.

One executive said rescission is about "stopping fraud and material misrepresentations that contribute to spiraling healthcare costs." So, for example, when a woman in Texas was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, her insurer dropped her coverage because the company found an instance in which she visited a dermatologist for acne, and didn't tell the insurance company about it. This, the insurer said, was an example of "fraud and material misrepresentation."



You don't say.

—Steve Benen

Motherfucking MURDERERS!

...have access to firearms....

When it is just a click too late to help themselves.

I always thought Lobbyist were the most Greedy bastards on the planet, no I believe the Insurance companies have past the Lobbyist.

They kill people every day.

To do otherwise would be considered irregular and abnormal.

Read it, it's in the fine print.

runs this country, or what?

Go all criminal penalty on their asses, including that anyone they drop without proof of intentional fraud gets free coverage for life. Congress has the power to do so; they just don't have the guts.

Republicans are fighting to keep insurance companies for profit only, as our only option - Public option would mean competition for the insurance corporations, republicans hate competition, they prefer a rigged game, collusion , no competition means sky high profits because there's no place else for one to go...the insurance companies, like all corporations & monopolies set prices among themselves to keep profits as high as possible, fuck sick people, it's about PROFITS!

It's should be a safety net for people who get sick and the insurance companies and republicans think it should be about profits & privatization....to charge outrageous fees, throw people off policies if the hospital bill is too large and not accepting people if they are sick, that's the republican plan health care, corporate profit....

"For middle-class Americans, health insurance offers little protection," he added.

"Nationally, a quarter of firms cancel coverage immediately when an employee suffers a disabling illness; another quarter do so within a year," the report reads.

We are fucked again if we get no public option, right back where we stated at the mercy of the insurance companies...out not for your well being but for profit and corporations always cut corners for more profits.