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-- hire doctors to poke holes in legitimate claims; and
-- pay bonus premiums to employees denying the most claims and/or approving the lowest amounts of payments.
"In sum, health insurers build massive machines designed" solely to deny and delay claims. The less they pay and longer they wait, the greater the bottom line profits and share prices. In 2008 alone, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) reported nearly 200,000 complaints against insurers, excluding states that don't keep records and millions of cheated policyholders who don't act.
According to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo: "All too often, insurers play a game of deny, delay, and deceive."
On August 11, a Health and Human Services Department (HHS) study reported that:
"Insurance companies can retroactively cancel individual policies if any condition was not disclosed when the policy was obtained. More to the point, insurers can cancel the policies" even if people aren't aware of them or if a current condition is unrelated to a past one.
"Coverage can also be revoked for all members of a family, even if only one family member failed to disclose a medical condition."
Two major insurers told Congress that they automatically investigate medical records of policyholders with histories of medical conditions like leukemia, ovarian and brain cancer, pregnancy with twins, and numerous other situations linked to high costs.
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