Blue Cross Agrees to Stop Canceling Individual Health Coverage Unless

							Blue Cross Agrees to Stop Canceling Individual Health Coverage Unless Policyholder
Deception is Shown




The Los Angeles Times -

May 11: Blue Cross of California agreed Thursday to stop canceling individual health
coverage unless it can show policyholder deception a major shift by the state's
largest health insurer that could lead to sweeping industrywide changes.

The move is part of an effort to settle a class-action lawsuit on behalf of as many as
6,000 people canceled since late 2001. It is an about-face for Blue Cross in what had
become known as "use-it-and-lose-it" health coverage because the cancellations
were often triggered by patients' claims for treatment.

The insurer's new stance is aimed at ending rescissions based on policyholders'
honest mistakes, inadvertent errors and other inconsistencies about their medical
histories on applications for coverage. Consumers contend that the forms are
purposely confusing, increasing the odds that applicants will make mistakes.

"This is a very significant consumer health victory ... something we believe they
should have been following all along," said Cindy Ehnes, director of the state
Department of Managed Health Care.

The deal is expected to send shock waves through an industry that had stood
together in defense of insurers' ability to retroactively rescind coverage for any
application omission, even honest mistakes. Blue Cross is by far the largest insurer
in California's individual market, and its corporate parent, Indianapolis-based
WellPoint Inc., is the nation's largest provider of health benefits.

The practice was brought to light in a series of Los Angeles Times stories that
detailed how rescissions were carried out and the hardships on canceled
policyholders, including their inability to obtain needed medical care and financial
woes caused by sudden debt.

Such cancellations are a potential problem for people who buy individual insurance
because they do not have group benefits through an employer or other organization.

Group insurance is guaranteed to all members regardless of health, but insurers can
deny individual coverage to people they deem too risky based on the applicant's
medical history and answers to detailed health questions.

Individual insurance is increasingly important, covering an estimated 3 million
Californians now, because rising costs are prompting employers to drop health
benefits. It also is key to the proposal put forth by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to
expand health coverage. He has publicly condemned improper retroactive
cancellations and wants to require insurers to sell to all buyers, regardless of health.

Blue Cross parent WellPoint denied any wrongdoing. "Due to the risks and expense
of protracted litigation, and to finally put to rest all of the claims involved in the
lawsuit, we believe this settlement is in the best interest of the class and Blue
Cross," WellPoint spokeswoman Shannon Troughton said in a statement.
She said that since January 2003, Blue Cross has rescinded less than 1% of new
enrollments, on average, or about 1,000 policies out of about 260,000 new
enrollments each year.

"In order to reduce costs for honest policyholders, insurers must use rescission to
address any identified issues of abuse," she said. Although rescissions are a fraction
of the insurer's business, the implications are often catastrophic for the individuals
who lose coverage. Also, physicians and hospitals have filed suit seeking payment for
millions of dollars in treatment that Blue Cross authorized in advance but failed to
cover after dropping the patients.

The consumer-friendly rescission standard puts Blue Cross ahead of efforts by
regulators and lawmakers to curb rescissions. "Blue Cross should be credited for
recognizing this problem and their willingness to fix it," said William Shernoff, a
Claremont lawyer who represented the two lead plaintiffs and many other canceled
policyholders in the class-action suit that led to the deal. "It will be interesting to see
if other health insurance companies like Blue Shield, HealthNet and others will follow
suit."

The deal follows months of closed-door talks between Blue Cross and Shernoff,
mediated by former California Supreme Court Justice Edward Panelli.

Representatives of the Department of Managed Health Care, which oversees health
maintenance organizations, and the state Department of Insurance, which governs
other forms of insurance, also were involved in shaping the terms of the agreement.

Ehnes of the Department of Managed Health Care said changes at other health plans
might take some time because they adamantly maintained that broad leeway to
rescind was essential to fighting fraud.

Also, she warned, Blue Cross could undermine its new stance by failing to follow
through on improvements to its procedures, such as vetting applications upfront. For
some time, she noted, the insurer has included in contracts a provision that the
policy could be canceled for willful misrepresentation.

Yet a broad review of Blue Cross rescissions by Ehnes' department determined in
March that the insurer failed to live up to that provision because it never asked the
policyholders about application flaws before rescinding. Her department hit Blue
Cross with a $1-million fine as a result.