I think money really blinds people to whats morally right.

I’ll tell you what is going on in this country, people who are severely injured are losing their homes; their cars, everything they own, they are losing their friends, and falling into depression. Their only recourse is bankruptcy, then when they have nothing and living on the street, they might get medicare, which won’t pay for most services anyway, so guess you pays with higher rates?

This is what is going on everyday in this country because the insurance industry has to “weed out” people, so they can make huge sums of money on wall street for the executives, investment houses and wall street insiders.

I hope, no I pray that many of the people above get severely injured or someone in you family, just so you can go through the pain of losing everything, for the insurance company!

Comparing the Health Industry to the Nazi regime. I would say that is an irrational argument. The Nazis wanted to get ride of sick people. The health Industry is trying to help sick people. You write as though you are educated so I am stunned by your comment. The lack of compassion is outstanding. 6 Million Jews died, and you dare compare that with the Health Industry. I do understand your thought process, no matter how convoluted. The health industry in no way wants to rid the world of sick people. The health industries goal is make sick people healthy. Until the Health Industry starts killing people or putting them on trains to concentration camps, lets keep the the Nazi comparison out of it. As a Jew, I am appalled with Paula’s train of thought. The Nazi’s were a regime bent on taking over the world. The health Industry is here to help, if you are willing to help yourself first. It might not be the perfect system, but a comparison to the Nazis attempt to ride the world of sick people is pretty far fetched. Thanks for the laughs Paulette.

This established issue of health care vs. the insurance industry seems to be increasingly argued to the point of frenzy and I’m am compelled to state that I do not feel that it is because of the impending election at this point. That being said, I believe it is because we are running out of options. After working every angle of both health care, insurance, managed care and industrial insurance I will make another scary statement and that is to say I would not encourage someone to train in medical billing or administration in the insurance or managed care industry. It is truly going away as we know it along with the support jobs that enforce the infrastructure of the insurance industry. Anyway, “insurance” is a loose term whose original meaning began to transform into the “network” scenario in the early 80’s.
I’ll spare you the long extrapolation of the insurance – union – network – industrial – HMO – self insured – time line that takes us from the beginning of “insurance” up to the present day.

I believe the question to ask ourselves is: which entity is best to handle the large pool of money that would go toward advances in medical practice and discovery of cures, the private business sector with accountability laws to protect us or the US Government with the people enforcing accountablity? Is this an undeniable right for every citizen and how can we curb potential abuse of the system that society may be burdened to support.

We know that abuse occurs now by means of insurance fraud, insurance CEOs reaping more profit than the providers of medical care that went to school for ten years, who pursue continuing education and try to hold up under the weight of student loans; we know that the pharmaceutical industry is misleading and unscrupulous with fee mark ups.

Now we are left with the fear of, “what if Big Government takes over”. Rest assured, there will be mistakes, abuse as well as new compliance laws to curb the abuse.

I say pay attention and tell the government how it is to be handled. Like everything else, this issue is up to the people and just because something is run by a government agency it does not mean we have given up a controlling interest in it’s operation.

And you talk about business! Maybe businesses and corporations will be actually able to get down to business instead of trying to be insurance gurus in order to manage the risk involved.

This is a hard one. While I am a supporter of capitalism and free enterprise, my choice is to also remain cognizant of the fatal issues of the Nazi regime.That being devaluation of any human life or allowing insidious genocidal reasoning. I dare say that did not actually begin with the Jewish culture but rather those who happened to be sick or disabled during the Stalin reign of communism which directly preceded the devaluation of the Jewish community who stood up to the abuse of the repulsive devaluation of the sick and disabled. Remember the three X’s on medical files? Three strikes, your out! Resources were deemed to be more important to strengthening of the developing Soviet Union Military rather than let society’s week and disabled live.

Now, where are we?

Come back~

Still, the problems are real. I have not yet found an effective way to balance the competing issues of guaranteed issue policies versus an individual mandate. Until the political realities of this are brought to light in a legitimate discussion of the “free lunch concept” and its problems, the answers just aren’t there. The closest thing I have found is to make HIPAA conversions available to anyone, or to enhance the availability of the high risk pool.

Finally, this issue is the Achilles heel of the health insurance business. It’s very profitable for carriers (cherry picking has it’s advantages to the stockholders!) and they want to keep it that way, even if it means a scorched earth policy ending in the government taking over the entire business. Alan, if you still think these decisions arent made with the bottom line in mind, you are kidding yourself!

The problem with the comments above is that you do not see a difference between a widget and a human life! Some people even compare it to their cars, people are not cars. I notice most of these “business” comments come from Republican’s, you know the “Family Values” party, so concerned about the Abortion issue, but tough luck if you get sick or injured. Where are the people who need regular care supposed to go?. Maybe their condition was not their fault, got injured or in an accident. Since most of these people are so religious, I hope you tell that to God on your judgment day, tell him your disregard for human life ” is just business” see how that goes over!

Alan,

It is not the least bit a surprise that health insurance carriers use rescission to guard against false claims. Yet, post claim underwriting, the act of underwriting or determining the suitability of a risk after a claim as opposed to before policy issuance, is not only a public relations disaster, but poor insurer business tactic. (The California Insurance Code speaks to post claim underwriting as a violation).
After almost four decades in the industry, I have had only two individual policies rescinded from insureds that were referred to me. As writing agent, I believed what they represented to me to be “true the best of there knowledge”. And on both occasions I was furious to have been brought in on their efforts to defraud the insurer. The insurer took the correct action.
The dialogue that needs to be undertaken is what effect will guaranteed issue the process of issuing policies to anyone regardless of health) have on everyone in the state who wishes to purchase health plans. What will be the immediate and long term effects on; pricing, renewals, claims review, plan designs, etc. This discussion has taken place for years, but I fear that rather than extol the virtue of good risks over bad, insurers are merely doing what is most expedient and economical on all fronts.
Finally, agents play a viatal role in field underwriting and need to be a continuing link in the issue of anny policy. I am curious as to whether the policies that created the publicized rescissions were generated by licensed agents or call centers.
Alan, thanks for opening this topic.