Recission aka if You Need Insurance, You Can't Have It

health care, public, private, bayh, recission,
Steve Benen at Political Animal did an excellent post on the health insurance industry and recission.

Recission is the practice of dropping people from coverage once they sick, even though they were paying their premiums and obeying all the rules. Oddly, that's quite legal. Oh, health insurance companies will occasionally give some justification for recission in an especially egregious case, but it's always ludicrous.

One executive said rescission is about "stopping fraud and material misrepresentations that contribute to spiraling healthcare costs." So, for example, when a woman in Texas was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, her insurer dropped her coverage because the company found an instance in which she visited a dermatologist for acne, and didn't tell the insurance company about it. This, the insurer said, was an example of "fraud and material misrepresentation."

Wtf does acne have to do with breast cancer? Nothing. It was just an excuse, and a bad one at that. In fact, it's the sort of excuse that makes one suspect that insurance companies aren't particularly concerned with being called on their behavior. Why should they be?

From the desk of Evan Bayh:

That my wife Susan is being paid $337,000 a year to be on the board of directors of Wellpoint is not a factor when I insist that there be no 'public option' for health care reform.
It is a matter of deep personnal conviction that I believe that if people are going to get sick and require health care, the investor class of our country should be making a profit from it. True reform will be requiring every American to purchase medical insurance thru a for-profit corporation, preferably Anthem or Blue Cross or Blue Shield which are owned by Wellpoint.

Yeah, no conflict of interest there.

Let's not forget what health insurance executives get paid for condemning sick people to suffering and death (unless you think the health care fairy stopped by and cured that woman from Texas?).

*United Health Group
CEO: William W McGuire
2005: 124.8 mil
5-year: 342 mil*

Aetna
CEO: John Rowe
2005: 22.1 mil
5-year:57.8 mil*

Cardinal Health
CEO: James Tobin
2005:1.1 mil
5-year:33.5 mil*

Cigna
CEO: H. Edward Hanway
2005:13.3 mil
5-year:62.8 mil*

Humana
CEO: Michael McAllister
2005:2.3 mil
5-year:12.9 mil*

McKesson
CEO: John Hammergen
2005: 13.4 mil
5-year:31.2 mil*

PacifiCare Health
CEO: Howard Phanstiel
2005: 3.4 mil
5-year: 8.5 mil*

Well Choice
CEO: Michael Stocker
2005: 3.2 mil
5-year: 10.7 mil*

WellPoint
CEO: Larry Glasscock
2005: 23 mil
5-year: 46.8 mil*

Oh, yeah. We don't need a public option. We need to keep paying William W. McGuire $124,800,000 a year to kill people. I honestly feel like grabbing some recissionees and congregating outside his office, chanting "Hey, hey, WWM, how many cancer patients did you kill today?"