From The Guardian:
The industry is often accused of wriggling out of claims. Firms comb medical records for any technicality that will allow them to refuse to pay. In one recently publicised example, a retired nurse from Texas discovered she had breast cancer. Yet her policy was cancelled because her insurers found she had previously had treatment for acne, which the dermatologist had mistakenly noted as pre-cancerous. They decreed she had misinformed them about her medical history and her double mastectomy was cancelled just three days before the operation.
Last month three healthcare executives were grilled about such “rescinding” tactics by a congressional subcommittee. When asked if they would abandon them except in cases of deliberately proven fraud, each executive replied simply: “No.”
Ugh! Paul Krugman gives a brief summary of “Why markets can’t cure healthcare,” based on Kenneth Arrow’s analysis. Let’s please put aside the insanity of market fundamentalism. Markets do many things well, but we need to make corrections when the results are intolerable.
