Health insurer tied bonuses to dropping sick policyholders

[RamboLiberal]

Source: LA Times

One of the state's largest health insurers set goals and paid bonuses based in part on how many individual policyholders were dropped and how much money was saved.

Woodland Hills-based Health Net Inc. avoided paying $35.5 million in medical expenses by rescinding about 1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006. During that period, it paid its senior analyst in charge of cancellations more than $20,000 in bonuses based in part on her meeting or exceeding annual targets for revoking policies, documents disclosed Thursday showed.

The revelation that the health plan had cancellation goals and bonuses comes amid a storm of controversy over the industry-wide but long-hidden practice of rescinding coverage after expensive medical treatments have been authorized.

These cancellations have been the recent focus of intense scrutiny by lawmakers, state regulators and consumer advocates. Although these "rescissions" are only a small portion of the companies' overall business, they typically leave sick patients with crushing medical bills and no way to obtain needed treatment.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-insure9nov09,0,3065397,full.story?coll=la-home-center

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I hope there is a hell cause I'd love to see these f'ers burn in it. When will the idiots who listen to the "we don't give a damn about you peons as we laugh our way to the bank" wingnut punditry, Repukes, and the insurance execs cry wolf about "socialized medicine" and wake the hell up!

In the mean time this needs to be made illegal to do to a policy holder and any exec who does this ought to be thrown in the socialized medical prison system!