California Health Insurers Must Reinstate Policies

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Oh wait, there is!
Several states have passed laws recently that allow for treble damages on the part of insurance companies that terminate coverage for crappy reasons.

mikey of WA 11:14PM April 18, 2008

National health care is the only rational solution. Eliminate the insurance companies and the cost of health care is reduced by 20% or more. Cover all patients and the cost per patient is significantly less. Under the current system all the expensive care is paid under Medicaid and Medicare, The insurance companies cherry pick the healthy and if you have expensive claims they dump you. Health-care should be decoupled from employment. Presently many individuals are forced to stay in terrible jobs solely to maintain their insurance. The worst situation is for the 45 million uninsured who delay getting health care and then have to enter the system through the most expensive portal, the ER. Their care is delayed and their morbidity and mortality are correspondingly increased. Approximaetly 65% of primary care providers believe National Health Care is the only solution. For the overpaid specialists only 40% believe it is the solution. No real surprises there. The best model for national health care seems to be the Taiwanese system as reviewed by NPR. It costs about 8% of GNP. It allows choice and access is easy. We are rapidly becoming one of the worst health care systems of the industrialized west and we are spending about 16% of GNP. The money is not going to patient care. With a national health care system there will have to be some compromises, however, I doubt they would be as bad as the present situation that millions of uninsured and under insured Americans now face with virtually no health care. Something like 50% of bankruptcies prior to the housing melt down were due to medical costs. IHC the UT charitable medical system is responsible for about 50% of the bankrutpcies in UT. we need to accept that the corporate business model is not the appropriate model for health-care. The incentives are not to provide the best care but to make the most money.

Robert Powel MD of UT 10:03PM April 18, 2008

This problem has too many facets for a sweeping declaration ("what we need here is...") to fix it. On the surface, you have doctors and hospitals billing more per hour and per procedure than ever before. Look deeper and you have medical malpractice lawyers suing the doctors and hospitals for more than ever before. Then you have med-mal insurance companies (that protect doctors from malpractice claims) charging doctors and hospitals more than ever before. Look in any direction and you see costs rising. The product liability insurance for invasive medical instruments is always on the rise - because the manufacturers of the instruments are always being sued, often for more than they are worth. Sometimes these cost-factors rise because the people who are in the group that needs low-cost healthcare are suing the providers and cashing out with million-dollar settlements. A few people getting multi-million dollar settlements in court might raise the cost of healthcare to a level that is beyond the reach of 1,000 other people. And that is a conservative estimate. To solve the problem, you have to fix the legal system, which helps to fix the insurance situation (for medical malpractice and product liability at least) and then you can start fixing hospitals, doctors, and individual health policies.

robertbeverly.com of FL 9:44PM April 18, 2008

These are the same companies Hillary wants to force Americans to depend on for ALL their medical care. Under Hillary Care, if you refuse to pay the insurance companies, regardless of whether they refuse to cover your medical condition, she'll have her stormtroopers confiscate your property and put you in jail until you agree to pay up.

rd of FL 9:22PM April 18, 2008

To deny, deny, deny...no matter what...for treatment for everyday illnesses such as the flu - to making sure we didn't cover you when you were really sick with heart disease, hbp, or thyroid diseases etc etc.. is exactly what they do. Insurance companies have forgotten that they were created to make life easier and to STREAMLINE the health market.....oops.....that went horribly wrong now didn't it. Simpleplan.com.....if more doctors would join and more patients would join we could have lower priced health insurance that was how we wanted it and not the insurance companies...As soon as a doctor in Minnesota/Wisconsin signs up..my family will be thier first patients....

thebestoffive of MN 8:21PM April 18, 2008

Sen McCain's idea to give a tax credit for people to buy insurance ties togeather two things that most Americans distrust and dread. It's a bad idea. We need a flat tax , everyone contributes evenly and those of us in the middle class are not carrying the rich and poor. And we need to change our health insurance system so that it is not a for profit venture.
Thanks, I feel better now.

stu of NM 8:12PM April 18, 2008

Let's see if I get this straight - people lie to insurance companies in order to get insurance and then whine and cry when they get caught. And California legislatures think that it's the insurance companies fault?
What a bunch of idiots!

Michael Reese of MI 7:51PM April 18, 2008

That's what's wrong with conservatism. It's inherently about not leading and breaking new ground and solutions, but trying to stay with the status quo as long as possible. Got an economic crisis? Tax cuts. No health care? Tax cuts. Nation's in debt and stopped growing? Tax cuts we can't afford.
Blind ideology aside, if folks think more of the same is what we need right now at this moment, as the rest of the world surpass us with new solutions that prudently partner government with market to solve people's problems, vote Republican. You'll get more of the same - which is to say nothing will change. Just don't blame the Democrats now for all the bullcrap mess we're in. Considering that Republicans have been at reckless at the steering wheel for more then a decade now.
Otherwise, vote Democrat - for reason, fact-based and practical governance. A party that isn't stuck in ideology bubble that is in denial and cuts the nation off from reality and facts.

theo of WA 7:14PM April 18, 2008

What about otherwise healthy people with HIV? It is impossible for anyone to get coverage, except group coverage where you can't be denied. Left to a market economy and various "qualifying" criteria, those of us living and working with HIV will be left without coverage completely. Only those that living at poverty status qualify for HIV funded government programs because of predatory insurance policies. The rest of us with decent jobs, albeit not rich, are forced to spend thousand of dollars per prescription per month in multi-drug regiments. How is anyone expected to live comfortably with medications representing more than 50% of our monthly income and no insurance? If you make a decent wage, you don't qualify for public medical assistance. If you do qualify it's because you are forced to bankrupt your savings, and live at poverty status before you do. Is this what the republican party considers the greatest healthcare system in the world? Contract HIV and find out where all the gaps are like I did!

Scott of CA 6:49PM April 18, 2008

When this happened to my mother-in-law, we talked to a consumer protection advocate who said this practice is common. As long as you don't need expensive treatment, they couldn't care less if you flat out lied on your application - it's free money for them. Applicants only get audited when they need expensive treatment. And they will use the most bizarre interpretations of things to deny your claims.
In my mother-in-law's case, she went to the doctor in 2001 complaining of stomach pain. The doctor did some exams and prescribed some medication for controling stomach acid. Two years later, after her huband retired and they were under a self-pay policy, it was discovered she had liver cancer. The insurance denied her treatment under the pre-existing condition clause. But the pre-existing condition clause only applies to conditions which the patient *knew* they had prior to enrolling. When we challenged the insurance company's denial, they used the rationale that, and I quote, because she had saught treatment 2 years earlier for stomach pain, "she knew she had *something*". This, even though they could provide no evidence that her previous stomach pain was even related to her cancer. We faught in court, and eventually won, but by that time too much time had gone by and the cancer had progressed too far to save her.

of CA 6:46PM April 18, 2008