Newshoggers Archive: Rescission and the health insurance industry

Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.

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Thursday, June 25, 2009

Rescission and the health insurance industry

by Jay McDonough

Rescission. You know, like rescinding, or making void. Sounds so
urbane, doesn't it? But, in fact, rescission is the private health
insurance industries name for their practice of canceling the insurance
of sick policy holders in order to maximize the company's profits. Not
so urbane now, huh?

A recent investigation
by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations found, in the
last five years, WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc.
canceled coverage for more than 20,000 people to avoid paying more than
$300M in claims

The report also noted that specific conditions
were targeted for rescission. Policyholders with breast cancer,
lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were specifically
targeted and insurance company employees were praised in their
performance appraisals for their efficiency at canceling the policies
of customers with expensive illnesses.

Following Robin Beaton's testimony
last week before the House Oversight and Investigations subcommittee,
the CEO's of WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group and Assurant appeared as
well.

Late
in the hearing, (Rep Bart) Stupak, the committee chairman, put the
executives on the spot. Stupak asked each of them whether he would at
least commit his company to immediately stop rescissions except where
they could show "intentional fraud."

The answer from all three executives:

"No."

Former
Cigna senior executive Wendell Potter, in testimony yesterday before
the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
testified that insurance companies practice rescission to protect the
company's bottom line.

�Potter,
who has more than 20 years of experience working in public relations
for insurance companies Cigna and Humana, said companies routinely drop
seriously ill policyholders so they can meet �Wall Street�s relentless
profit expectations,�� Potter told the hearing, according to ABC News. (Link)

Free
markets are terrific vehicles for pulling the cost out of flat screen
televisions and keeping the price of milk in check. But, somethings
terribly wrong if private health insurance providers strategies for
playing in the free market include profit maximization, not by
streamlining sytems and reducing administrative costs, but by employing
corporate policy to deny legitimate coverage to their policyholders.

Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Rescission and the health insurance industry

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