April 23, 2010

Unconscionable doesn't come close

News item: WellPoint routinely targets breast cancer patients

Shortly after they were diagnosed with breast cancer, each of the women learned that her health insurance had been canceled.

[snip]

The women paid their premiums on time. Before they fell ill, neither had any problems with their insurance. Initially, they believed their policies had been canceled by mistake.

They had no idea that WellPoint was using a computer algorithm that automatically targeted them and every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies, according to government regulators and investigators.

For this behavior, WellPoint's CEO Angela Brady got a 51% pay hike in 2009, to $13.1M.

Hotpoint cares more about its customers than WellPoint does.

Posted by Linkmeister at April 23, 2010 10:28 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Of course Hotpoint cares more about its customers. Hotpoint's customers have actual alternatives; they can buy fridges and ranges from Amana, from Whirlpool, from Maytag, and from a whole industry of non-U.S. manufacturers including China's Haier. If you have an individual health policy, there is NO competition.

I know you know this. I just like to state the obvious sometimes.

Posted by: hedera at April 23, 2010 12:06 PM