According to the Los Angeles Times Opinion LA blog, Paul Thornton and Jon Healey write that health insurance companies are engaged in abusive cherry-picking practices that provide all the reason in the world to support the current health care reforms.
For instance, the authors point to the Reuters report about the case of Jerome Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell was a young South Carolinian who signed up for an insurance policy at 17. He was later diagnosed with HIV.
His health insurance company, Fortis — now known as Assurant — summarily canceled his policy after the HIV diagnosis. And he filed suit. As the result of the lawsuit, it was disclosed that “the insurance company had a company policy of targeting policyholders with HIV.
A computer program and algorithm was used to target every policyholder recently diagnosed with HIV for an automatic fraud investigation.
{ 0 comments }
