What Happens Now, After Health Insurance Industry Refuses to Stop Cutting the Sick?

Apparently, nothing much.

Let’s back up, a moment. Health insurers have been regularly cutting policy holders from their rolls that have been diagnosed with such diseases as breast cancer, lymphoma, and a multitude of other ailments. This act of cutting the sick from coverage rolls is called, in the industry, recission. And, some in congress have been investigating health insurers recission practices.

So, it should come as no surprise that yesterday, in congressional hearings, three main insurers told congresscritters that they have no intention of stopping their receission practices.

Executives of three of the nation’s largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite withering criticism from Republican and Democratic members of Congress who decried the practice as unfair and abusive.

The hearing on the controversial action known as rescission, which has left thousands of Americans burdened with costly medical bills despite paying insurance premiums, began a day after President Obama outlined his proposals for revamping the nation’s healthcare system.

An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period.

Now, our congresscritters are trying to get these insurers to agree to only cutting folks from their rolls when the person applying for health insurance gives fraudulent information in order to get that insurance. But, the health insurance companies are having none of that. In fact, they have every intention of continuing dropping the sick from their rolls. Why would the sick get recinded?

A Texas nurse said she lost her coverage, after she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, for failing to disclose a visit to a dermatologist for acne.

The sister of an Illinois man who died of lymphoma said his policy was rescinded for the failure to report a possible aneurysm and gallstones that his physician noted in his chart but did not discuss with him.

But, these actions are not just the fault of policy holders. These insurance companies praise workers that find ways to drop sick policy holders. And, not just sick policy holders, but pregnant policy holders as well.

Recission is an ugly practice, and one that the insurers agressively follow. If they didn’t follow that, why in the world would their workers be praised in preformance reviews for cancelling thousands of policies?

The committee’s investigation found that WellPoint’s Blue Cross targeted individuals with more than 1,400 conditions, including breast cancer, lymphoma, pregnancy and high blood pressure. And the committee obtained documents that showed Blue Cross supervisors praised employees in performance reviews for rescinding policies.

One employee, for instance, received a perfect 5 for “exceptional performance” on an evaluation that noted the employee’s role in dropping thousands of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 million worth of medical care.

As it stands, the insurance companies have no incentive to stop this rescission practice, as they have no incentive to curtail costs. These are businesses where their main concern is profit, profit, and more profit. These companies are NOT in the business to help you, no matter what PR campaign they come up with to sway you to believe otherwise.

Last week, I noted a post over at Knoxviews which pointed out the president of BCBSofTN getting a salary boost, and I have a feeling recission plays a part in his salary. At the very least, a public-option must be part of the health care reform being played out in Washington as I type. Unfortunately, a public option that will be available to people that were cut from insurers, as well as the current uninsured isn’t going so well.

Perhaps most important, Obama has not yet demonstrated how hard he’s prepared to fight for the so-called “public option”—a government-run alternative to private insurance—or what such a reform might entail. At the AMA, Obama reiterated his position that one of the choices available to Americans “needs to be a public option.” But could this position be a straw man, set up only to be knocked down? The public plan has certainly served as a panacea to single-payer advocates and other critics of medicine for profit, including important Democratic constituencies like labor unions. One health care advocate told me that the speculation around town was that the administration could eventually abandon the public option in order to win bigger concessions from its opponents.

So, what plan would cover those that the greedy insurance companies have rescinded? Single payer would begin to take health care out of the so-called free market system, that has failed so miserably. It would be a stop-gap measure that would cover those that have been rescinded for some ridiculous reason by the for-profit insurance companies. As a single payer system is not even being discussed, the next best option is a public option, and as Ridgeway notes, even a public option has little chance of being affordable, equitable and available for the people that need the coverage the most. And this, folks, is one of the saddest commentaries about our current health care system.