One after another, shortly after a diagnosis of breast cancer, each of the women learned that her health insurance had been canceled. First there was Yenny Hsu, who lived and worked in Los Angeles. Later, Robin Beaton, a registered nurse from Texas. And then, most recently, there was Patricia Relling, a successful art gallery owner and interior designer from Louisville, Kentucky.
None of the women knew about the others. But besides their similar narratives, they had something else in common: Their health insurance carriers were subsidiaries of WellPoint, which has 33.7 million policyholders — more than any other health insurance company in the United States.
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.
Once the women were singled out, they say, the insurer then canceled their policies based on either erroneous or flimsy information. WellPoint declined to comment on the women's specific cases without a signed waiver from them, citing privacy laws.
Rescission by computer. You don't get more "death panel" then that, folks. A computer flagged their insurance as soon as they were diagnosed with breast cancer and then canceled their insurance automatically. That practice is supposed to end with the new health care reform law.
Don't count on it.
"People have this idea that someone is going to flip a switch and rescission and other bad insurance practices are going to end," says Peter Harbage, a former health care adviser to the Clinton administration. "Insurers will find ways to undermine the protections in the new law, just as they did with the old law. Enforcement is the key."
And it's that enforcement that will be neutered whenever possible, especially if the Republicans get back in charge. After all, they want to repeal the whole thing, including the parts that stop insurance companies from immediately targeting your wife or your daughter or your mother and canceling their insurance as soon as they are diagnosed with breast cancer.
Repeal is going to be a big loser for the Republicans, but only if Democrats enforce the new laws instead of writing in loopholes big enough to kill thousands of people with rescission each year.
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