Uncategorized

Maybe Nancy Pelosi Was Right: Insurance Company Targeted Breast Cancer Patients

By Michael Scherer | @michaelscherer | April 22, 2010 | +

Reuters has a stunner today. The insurance company WellPoint had a policy of targeting  its customers with fraud investigations if they were diagnosed with breast cancer, according to federal investigators. The goal: Find a reason to drop their coverage of sick women before big bills started to arrive.

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.

Read the entire story here.

Related Topics: health care reform, health insurance, health insurance industry, recission, wellpoint, Uncategorized

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  • bobell

    I’m not sure this is even news anymore. But don’t worry; the free market can fix this, as it can fix everything.

  • redraven937

    Dog bites man.

    But hey, at least a computer algorithm is better than an actual death panel staffed with human beings, am I right? Repeal and… do nothing, or whatever!

  • southernbell49

    Confirmation that health reform is indeed also about insurance reform.

    WellPoint disgusts me. The company is a vile, immoral business. In fact, they are so disgusting a new word needs to be invented to express the country’s collective disgust.

  • Ivy_B

    But, but if they were stopped from doing things like this it would be the big bad government that stopped them. Government is eeeevil.

    Would be nice to see this get the kind of coverage the anti-hcr statements do.

  • m0mentom0ri

    Fun Fact: Susan Bayh, wife of Sen Evan Bayh, was a mid-level attorney at Eli Lilly before joining WellPoint’s board in 1998, while her husband was governor.
    .
    When we say that congress is in bed with the insurance and pharmaceutical companies, we mean that literally.

  • queencersei

    I will never understand conservative’s love affair with the insurance industry. Insurance companies are not your friends. They do not care about your personal stories, life or family. If you really get sick, it is in their self interest to dump you.
    But hey as long as the free market runs unchecked, that is what is really important. Not some freeloading woman who has the nerve to get breast cancer and expects US to pay for it!

  • 53_3

    Lets see just which end of the sadists’ whip NewRusty and other conservatives are on this time.
    .
    I think ever since HCR was done, things have been going slowly south for our fiends, er, friends in need…

  • 53_3

    FYI, OT:
    .
    I thought maybe Cheney was going to announce that he had started a shadow government in his basement, behind the torture equipment gathering dust down there, but no:
    .
    http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/22/cheney-backs-rubio/
    .
    I’m deeply disappointed. He woulda been good as Cheef Interrogator for the Take Back America movement…

  • profbaltasar

    Why are so many people scared by “death panels” when insurance companies have served that function for ages?

    I have an aunt and a sister who are survivors of breast cancer since the 90s, that is how the terrible ‘socialized medicine’ of Europe take care of people.

  • apr2563

    No shocker here. This has been happening for decades. Usually with the compliance of state insurance regulators.
    .
    Having worked for a third party health insurance company in California, we were all aware of what scumbags Wellpoint was and is. The procedure for review and arbitration was always handled by the insurance companies. Guess who pervailed.
    .
    Our enrollees submitted their grievances to us and we past them on to the appropriate insurance carriers. First the review would be delayed, then argued, and then denied. Of course, some people died in the meantime. Oh well, shareholders and upper management salaries were more important.
    .
    The right trusts the free market to be fair?

  • http://elvisberg.wordpress.com Elvis Elvisberg

    Maybe Nancy Pelosi Was Right: Insurance Company Targeted Breast Cancer Patients
    -
    Rule of thumb: if Nancy Pelosi says one thing and John Boehner says something else, bet on Pelosi being right.
    -
    (Even better: check up on both of them!)

  • greuven

    There’s a very simple solution. Those in the insurance companies responsible for these practices of wrongfully rescinding customer policies and risking their lives (and undoubtedly leading to their death in some cases) should be indicted for attempted murder and/or murder. That will cause them to change their ways pretty quickly, and judging by the events described in the full article, is exactly what they deserve. Absolutely sickening.

  • shepherdwong

    But…he said and she said…’nuf said. I think Michael’s really screwing with the paradigm here (nice work).

  • lcky9

    I know women who have had breast cancer both with and without insurance and NEVER has one of them be dropped or denied coverage or treatment..
    there is a problem with breast cancer and it not being cured much more cheaply and without all the drugs.. it seems 60 minutes ran a special on it.. one company OWNS breast cancer, they have a patient on it.. THEY and only THEY do the lab work for it.. they are the ones who suggest the treatment.. I find it strange you CAN’T even get a second opinion because the lab work will go to the SAME lab.. There are other companies who have patented OTHER diseases and do the same.. and no other doctor or lab is allowed to do any work on a cure but this lab.. they own it.. don’t beleive me go to the 60 minutes website and look it up.. BTW if breast cancer was such a concern, why did our government right before the health care bill passed come out and say it was NOT necessary to be tested but every 3 years? Something is just NOT adding up on the insurance side NOR the government side.. and who wins?? BIG PHARM..

  • http://www.wholesaleinsurance.net verecundus

    What? How dare the company discontinue coverage in the event that the discover that policy holders lied on their applications!

    At very least, they should perform equally as many investigations on policies that they have no reason to worry about (the ones where big claims aren’t likely to be called in).

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