Another Health Insurer Caught Falsely Cancelling Thousands of Health Plans

Another Health Insurer Caught Falsely Cancelling Thousands of Health Plans

by Vyan

 

Following the report that Insurer Humana was fined $65,000 in Kentucky for sending out 6,500 misleading cancellation letters for low-premiums plans only to be automatic re-enrollment in high cost plans before these customers were given a chance to shop on the open exchange for a better and cheaper plan - we now have a new report that Anthem Blue Cross is being sued for tricking people into dropping their "grandfathered" plans.
Think that's bad, well this is even worse.
http://thinkprogress.org/...

“Blue Cross successfully enticed tens of thousands of its individual policyholders to switch out of their grandfathered health plans and forever lose their protected grandfathered status,” states the lawsuit. “Blue Cross concealed information about the consequences of switching plans and intentionally misled its policyholders to encourage the replacement of grandfathered policies.”

And more... http://www.ibtimes.com/...

The lawsuits, filed Monday in Superior Court, may signal an emerging customer pushback against the approximately 900,000 cancellations in California alone of individual health insurance policies that will take effect Dec. 31.

900,00 Cancellations.  False Cancellations of plans that, which under the Affordable Care Act are "Grandfathered" and Don't Need to be Cancelled.  The Insurance Companies are doing it to Scam their Customers into higher cost plans and away from the ACA Exchanges in a practice that violates State Law known as "Twisting".

The plaintiffs, Paul Simon, 39, and Catherine Corker, 63, of California say that they are among the customers that Anthem Blue Cross pressured to drop their grandfathered policies in 2011 without giving them all the facts about new Obamacare requirements that could raise the price of their plans in an effort to cut its own costs. Simon and Corker would have preferred to remain on the grandfathered plans permitted by the law, and are now asking the courts to block Anthem from canceling any more policies unless the company allows consumers to switch back into their grandfathered plans. “This is about an insurance company manipulating the situation and concealing the facts,” said William Shernoff, an attorney for both the plaintiffs, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “We are asking the court to give our clients and everybody else in the same situation the option of going back to their grandfathered policies.”

These lawsuits may take some time to work their way through the court system, but what can work even more quickly is the CA State Insurance Commission and also the Court of public opinion.  Just like in Kentucky the CA Commission has the ability and power to Restore These Improperly Cancelled Plans and get customers back the "Plan they Prefer" if that's what they truly want. Perhaps if a few (thousand) of the customers who received letters claiming their "grandfathered" plan was cancelled were to contact that commissioners office, there might be some action on this faster rather than later.
http://www.insurance.ca.gov/...
California Department of Insurance
Consumer Services Division
300 South Spring Street, South Tower
Los Angeles, CA 90013
California Department of Insurance
Fraud Division
9342 Tech Center Drive, Suite 100
Sacramento, CA 95826
fraud@insurance.ca.gov
800-927-HELP (4357)
I'm just saying...perhaps the President isn't the one who should apologizing for these Cancellations, the Insurerers Should be.
Vyan