CA insurance companies fight anti-recission rules.

[eridani]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/08/19/financial/f132925D03.DTL

A new regulation that makes it harder for health insurance companies to drop individual policyholders in California is being challenged in court by an industry trade group.

The California Department of Insurance's new regulations, which took effect Wednesday, require insurers to investigate the medical histories of those seeking individual policies before accepting any premiums.

The Association of California Life and Health Insurance Companies sued to stop the rules on Monday, accusing the state of acting "in excess of its jurisdiction and authority" by creating regulation that conflicts with the state's insurance code.

Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner on Thursday called the lawsuit "shortsighted and morally wrong."

"Sometimes I think representatives in this industry have their heads permanently stuck in the sand. Illegal rescissions are a repugnant industry practice," said Poizner.

Comment by Don McCanne of PNHP: One of the most egregious offenses of the health insurance industry has been to retroactively revoke an insurance policy after the insured individual files a medical claim, a process known as rescission. Public outrage over this injustice helped to drive the process that brought us the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).

Apparently the insurance industry has learned nothing. Their trade organization in California has the gall to infuriate all of us by suing to protect their right to do their underwriting after a claim is filed rather than before the policy is issued, whacking the patients when they are down.

Since PPACA will make rescissions more difficult, you would think that the industry would be quiet and accept the inevitable. No. Instead they reveal that they are not simply an amoral industry but rather a truly immoral one by insisting on their right to retroactively deny payment of medical bills run up by the hapless patient, merely to save the costs of timely underwriting.

This is not the industry that should be managing our health care financing. We need our own public financing entity - a single payer national health program.

My comment: I'd go farther than that. Don't just object to bad underwriting practices--FUCK UNDERWRITING altogether! It's as if a fire department were to analyze census tracts to see which ones had the most fires, and then refuse to go there. If the entire population is in the same risk pool, there is no need for underwriting.

[Angry Dragon]

1. K&R

"If the entire population is in the same risk pool, there is no need for underwriting".

We need our own public financing entity - a single payer national health program

[eridani]

2. I'd go so far as to say that underwriting fundamentally amounts to mass murder

If some foreign country killed 44,000 Americans a year, it would be a radioactive cinder.

[area51]

6. +1

Each day, 273 people die due to lack of health care in the U.S.; that's 100,000 deaths per year.

We need single-payer health care, not a welfare bailout for the serial-killer insurance agencies.

We don't need the GingrichCare of mandated, unregulated for-profit insurance. Republinazi '93 plan:

"Subtitle F: Universal Coverage - Requires each citizen or lawful permanent resident to be covered under a qualified health plan or equivalent health care program by January 1, 2005."

"We will never have real reform until people's health stops being treated as a financial opportunity for corporations."

[Hannah Bell]

3. +100. insure the whole population & everything balances out. we pay, one way or another.

either we take care of people or we pay the price -- in crime, in despair, in watching people die on the streets.

the whole insurance biz could die for all i care. it's a parasitical scam.

[The Magistrate]

4. It Is Getting Hard To See, Ma'am, How This Ends Without Mobs Hanging Men From Streetlights

The effrontery leaves one absolutely breathless....

[eridani]

5. +100

The only "trigger option" that I ever favored involved a scenario with insurance CEOs lined up against a wall.

[bemildred]

7. Our recent failures to cull the herd in the business community has led to this sort of lack of clue.

Effrontery has been a successful business strategy for much too long. And in politics too.

[The Magistrate]

8. Unfortunately True, My Friend

"What is not forbidden is required."