HEALTH PLANS: More of the same bad behavior?

This article, Sick but Insured? Think Again by Lisa Girion at the Los Angeles Times is why she’s been slow to respond to my email about the AHIP quote from last week. No matter. It’s the same meme about California health insurers retrosprctively cancelling sick people’s insurance on very flimsy grounds.

What I can’t tell is if this is a new story or just a human interest piece on the same issue. Wellpoint’s Blue Cross unit is already in deep “discussions” with both the patients’ legal team and the state’s DMHC from the cases reported earlier this year. There were reports that California’s Blue Shield (not related to Wellpoint or Blue Cross) is also being examined, and the story features them doing the same thing. By the way, if you look carefully at the comments from the AHIP piece last week, you’ll see that Pacificare/United is accused of the same thing too.

So it’s safe to say that everyone is at it. And it’s therefore safe to say that the individual market sucks.

 

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