Wellpoint Murders Breast Cancer Women Using a Spreadsheet

Added Health Care for Americans Now:

“WellPoint’s Blue Cross-Blue Shield companies’ disregard for human life to maximize profits is immoral and outrageous. The Reuters report shows an unconscionable pattern of denying needed health care to line the pockets of wealthy executives and shareholders.

“Today’s disclosure provides more evidence of why Congress needed to pass national health reform in the first place, and it also shows why we need to curb the extraordinary influence of insurance companies so they don’t interfere with enforcement of the new law. We need the forthcoming federal regulations to shine a light on the insurance companies and hold them accountable for their bad practices.”

Of course, it helps to use your financial prowess as a company to lobby for and get the legislation you want.

Jon Walker laid out how WellPoint successfully removed independent third-party review of all rescission cases.

Reuters reports that WellPoint is under federal investigation for singling out breast cancer patients and dropping their coverage “based on either erroneous or flimsy information.” They also report that language in the House bill would have protected these women, but it was removed in the Senate version of the bill because “lobbyists for WellPoint and other top insurance companies successfully fought proposed provisions of the legislation.”

Max Baucus, head of the Senate Finance Committee, credits former WellPoint VP Liz Fowler with writing the “blueuprint” of the bill, and her name appears as “author” on the bill PDF released by the committee [...]

As you can see, the Senate bill does not mandate either independent third party review or the continuation of coverage while the review is taking place. Theoretically it’s possible for the Secretary of HHS to require a similar independent third party review framework for rescission, but unlike the House bill, the Senate bill which ultimately passed does not require her to do so — something WellPoint actively lobbied for.