Once again: Taking the long view, the authentic national objective in health policy is health care for all Americans, not 'health insurance' for all. Insurance is supposed to be a means to an endtheoretically, facilitating health carerather than an end in itself. A historic combination of industry consolidation and laissez-faire public policy has made the insurance companies the gatekeepers to health care, but 'health insurance' does not actually substitute for health care any more than 'job training' substitutes for jobs.
Bad faith practices--easily perceived as such by the man on the street who chooses not to submit an insurance claim because he does not want his premiums raised afterward--include denying claims unreasonably; delaying or refusing reasonable settlement; refusing to pay promptly; failing to handle claims fairly; refusing to provide coverage; and unreasonable policy cancellations. There is the unsavory practice of 'post-claim underwriting'-finding a reason to cancel the policy when the customer submits a claim, via examination the company did not make when the policy was issued. And then there are retaliatory rate increases, or just simply recouping any payout by raising the insurance premium afterward, as mentioned.
By the way, this latter habit is widespread in automobile insurance-one more argument against forcing every person born to buy health insurance the way every driver is forced to buy car insurance.
Under the previous administration, our DOJ was MIA regarding insurance-sector abuses. While fraud against insurance companies-and against Medicare--by customers has been extensively prosecuted, the feds have typically not prosecuted bad faith actions-delay, deny, defend--by insurance companies against customers. The Bush Justice Department's aggressive pursuit of (individual) insurance fraud over insurance company bad faith, indeed, paralleled its aggressive pursuit of alleged individual 'voter fraud' over the larger problem of election fraud.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
