The Reuters news agency reports that the insurance company Assurant (previously known as Fortis) speicifically targeted policy holders who developed HIV/AIDS for termination of coverage. The Reuters story is available here: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62G2DO20100317
The findings come to light because a young man who was diagnosed with HIV after getting the health insurance policy was denied coverage and he sued the company. He won his case in a lower court and also won his case when the insurance company appealed. One of the shocking things that came out during the trials is provided in the following quote: |Previously undisclosed records from Mitchell's case reveal that |Fortis had a company policy of targeting policyholders with HIV. |A computer program and algorithm targeted every policyholder |recently diagnosed with HIV for an automatic fraud investigation, |as the company searched for any pretext to revoke their policy. |As was the case with Mitchell, their insurance policies often were |canceled on erroneous information, the flimsiest of evidence, or |for no good reason at all, according to the court documents and |interviews with state and federal investigators. Jerome Mitchell who brought the suit was able to get his treatment paid through other means. He will be paid $10 million for Assurant's actions. In his blog, Paul Krugman also reviews this case and wonders whether Assurant's cases was an outlier, a low probability event. No, in fact, it is a common practice among many insurance companies. In Assurant's case, the practice allowed the company to make $150 million between 2003 to 2007. It is a profitable practice for other companies; see: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/demons-and-demonization/ Outside of being purely cynical about any large profit making business, how would one treat this as an exercise in critical thinking and analysis? Only people's lives depend on it. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=1351 or send a blank email to leave-1351-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
