American Health Care in a nutshell
This story, while good news for the individual involved, interests me more for what it says about what for-profit health-care really means.
Calling Woodland Hills-based Health Net's actions "egregious," Judge Sam Cianchetti, a retired Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, ruled that the company broke state laws and acted in bad faith.
"Health Net was primarily concerned with and considered its own financial interests and gave little, if any, consideration and concern for the interests of the insured," Cianchetti wrote in a 21-page ruling.
. . .
At the arbitration hearing, internal company documents were disclosed showing that Health Net had paid employee bonuses for meeting a cancellation quota and for the amount of money saved.
"It's difficult to imagine a policy more reprehensible than tying bonuses to encourage the rescission of health insurance that keeps the public well and alive," the judge wrote.
The policy may be reprehensible, but it is the inevitable result of a for-profit health insurance system. The less coverage you have to pay out, the more profit you make, and the happier your shareholders will be. The incentives in such a system have little to do with health, and everything to do with the money that can be made from selling people the hope of health. Hope that can be pulled away if it looks like it may interfere with the bottom line.
Such a beautiful system.
