Putting People First

The corporatization of America has spread far and wide under the Bush administration. Industry leaders get placed in charge of the government departments that regulate their industries; oil companies rake in tsunami-scale profits yet still receive billions in federal subsidies; the military has been partly privatized and handed over to the likes of Haliburton; and so much more.

That depressing trend makes even small victories seem wonderful, inspirational. News of one of those came out today, from California. There, state regulators have come down with both boots on Blue Cross, a leading health insurance provider.

Blue Cross has been pulling health coverage out from underneath policyholders whenever possible, often for anything they could claim was an undisclosed, pre-existing condition, regardless of whether the failure to disclose was clearly unintentional.

In a previous post I wrote about a young girl who developed a potentially-fatal tumor on her jaw. Blue Cross paid the first $20,000 of her medical costs but then cut her off on discovering she had a "bump" on her chin at the time her parents applied for insurance. Her parents didn't pay any attention to it, neither did the girl's doctor. No one could say that, at the time the policy was purchased, the bump was even cancerous. That didn't stop Blue Cross from forcing the parents to scramble to fund the rest of their daughter's medical treatments. They sued, just like about 70-other shafted policy holders.

Those suits got settled, and they were all settled at once, and the former policy-holders are said to all be quite pleased with the outcome. What happened was that California state regulators stepped up and did what regulators are supposed to do - regulate - in the public interest. They made it clear to Blue Cross that its conduct was unacceptable and they warned it that big fines were coming down. Suddenly, Blue Cross had a change of heart. Good news for all the policy holders who were shafted and all those who would have been shafted on claims to come.