This could be the start of something huge.
The sociopaths who run our nation’s health insurance corporations might—just might—begin to face justice for the countless Americans that have suffered at their hands. Health Net, one of the largest insurers in the nation, is facing multiple civil and criminal charges for retroactive recissions, their habit of kicking people off the insurance rolls as soon as they get sick.
This practice is not a coincidence—it’s at the heart of their business plan, in fact of the whole model of for-profit health insurance. Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo was brave in standing up to the practice,and justified. We need other activist prosecutors to follow his lead, and help turn the public disgust with insurance corporations into national momentum for replacing them with universal, non-profit guaranteed coverage...also known as single-payer healthcare.
...cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog...
Lisa Girion in the LA Times breaks the story:
One of the state's largest insurers, Health Net Inc. of Woodland Hills, sold individual policies with the promise of medical coverage while engaging in a secret and illegal scheme to drop patients if they needed expensive treatment, the Los Angeles city attorney contended in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
The company defrauded thousands of policyholders using "a wide range of unlawful, unfair and fraudulent acts and practices" aimed at avoiding payment for expensive treatment by canceling the policies of those who needed it, "rendering that coverage largely illusory," the suit maintained....
Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo said in an interview Wednesday that he was opening a separate criminal investigation into Health Net's practice of paying employee bonuses based in part on canceling policies of people who have submitted substantial medical claims.
These suits are one step ahead of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s investigation for price-fixing, but both are positive developments.
Meanwhile, an unrelated $9 million judgement against Health Net has just been announced, in a case where the insurer illegally cancelled the policy of a woman with breast cancer. The judge called the company, "despicable." Indeed.
You know you’re in a world of hurt when you have to trot out your PR people to respond and this is all they can come up with:
Spokesman David Olson called the city attorney's litigation duplicative and said investigations already are being handled by the state Department of Managed Health Care and the Department of Insurance.
Olson's bosses at Health Net are people who have been entrusted with $11 billion in care dollars each year...and who, if they hold to industry standards, will disappear about 30% of that for overhead and profits.
Are you one of the thousands who’ve been victimized by Health Net? Here are some of your options:
- Visit the site LA County has put up to track the company.
- Tell your story at the Guaranteed Healthcare site, as over one thousand others have done. And check out the other stories—it’s an amazing archive of an America tragedy.
- Call their spokesperson David Olson and give him a piece of your mind!: 818-676-6978
Despite these scandals, Health Net announced today that its Medicare Advantage plans are selling like hotcakes, thanks to cross-promotion with the American Heart Association.