When Your Insurer Says You're No Longer Covered: Firms defend recission as "fraud control"

[depakid]

Sally Marrari, who co-owns R& S Auto in Los Angeles, is trading service on her doctor's Porsche for medical care.
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The untimely disappearance of Sally Marrari's medical coverage goes a long way toward explaining why insurance companies are cast as the villain in the health-care reform drama.

"They said I never mentioned I had a back problem," said Marrari, 52, whose coverage with Blue Cross was abruptly canceled in 2006 after a thyroid disorder, fluid in the heart and lupus were diagnosed. That left the Los Angeles woman with $25,000 in medical bills and the stigma of the company's claim that she had committed fraud by not listing on a health questionnaire "preexisting conditions" Marrari said she did not know she had.

By the time she filed a lawsuit in 2008, she also got a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and her debts had swelled beyond $200,000. She was able to see a specialist by trading office visits for work on the doctor's 1969 Porsche at the garage she owns with her husband.

"I've had about 10 visits," Marrari said of the barter arrangement that has proved more reliable than her insurance. "The car needs a lot of work."

Rescission -- the technical term for canceling coverage on grounds that the company was misled -- is often considered among the most offensive practices in an insurance industry that already suffers from a distinct lack of popularity among the American public. Tales of cancellations have fueled outrage among regulators, analysts, doctors and, not least, plaintiffs' lawyers, who describe insurers as too eager to shed patients to widen profits.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/07/AR2009090702455.html?hpid=topnews

Memo to the Obama administration and the (uncorrupted) Dems in Congress: LEARN HOW TO TELL SOME STORIES and marshal people's anger.

Crikey, These same companies are amassing exorbitant profits and with obscene bonus structure in the middle of the recession!

[Justitia]

1. Does anyone else think the doc sounds like a dick? Trading treatment for work on his car?

I mean - WTF?

You're making a seriously sick woman WORK ON YOUR FUCKING PORSCHE for cancer treatments?

JFC, does it get worse than that?

[dorktv]

3. Gee, sorry that you think that the doctor should be giving the treatment away for free regardless...

of how much money it costs him.

[Justitia]

4. God forbid he have less $$$ to spend on hobby Porsches - disgusting.

Maybe she can start cleaning his toilets when his sports cars are all fixed up.

Vile.

[high density]

10. What's so wrong with bartering?

There's nothing that says this doctor should be forced to treat somebody for free. Plus the patient may feel guilty about not being able to pay. The doc gets his car fixed and the patient gets treatment. I think you have your anger focused on the wrong entity in this situation.

[Justitia]

11. I have nothing against bartering, but this is a seriously ill woman, it seems cruel to me.

She has lupus, fluid in her chest and pancreatic cancer.
On top of that grim diagnosis, she has medical bills in the six digits and no insurance.

Yet, doc has traded 10 office visits for her to work on his classic sports car.

It feels really sick to me and the truly sick person is at the extreme disadvantage.

Maybe no one feels the same way, but I think a sick person shouldn't have to suffer the indignity of physically laboring on some rich dude's hobby car to get to see a doctor a few times.

[high density]

13. The problem isn't the doctor, the problem is the insurance company. NM

[murielm99]

6. Actually, no.

I think he may have been saying, tongue in cheek, that the car needs a lot of work. The Porsche could not possibly need hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of work. He may be leaving them a shred of pride by bartering. He may be covering his ass, too, so that all sorts of people do not hound him for free treatment.

It is hard to say. A newspaper article cannot convey body language and tone of voice. We have our little smilies here, in case people don't get it.

Maybe he is a dick. But I got the opposite impression.

[Justitia]

7. The remarks were made by the cancer victim, not the doctor. He's not quoted.

[dorktv]

2. Textbook case of tort reform if I ever saw it. *rolls eyes*

[depakid]

5. Actually, it is- she OUGHT to be able to sue for bad faith and get BIG punative damages

Unfortunately, due to a number of absurd legal (protectionist) reasons, she and 100's of millions of other Americans are unable to do so.

[avaistheone1]

9. Another good reason we need a comprehensive single payer Medicare like program in the US.

[AspenRose]

8. Evil. They are greedy and evil.

:mad:

[uponit7771]

12. WOW!