October 21, 2009

Rape as a pre-existing condition to denying health insurance

If it wasn't bad enough that many insurance companies consider pregnancy and being a victim of domestic violence a pre-existing condition, we can now add being raped to that list.

From HuffPo:
A Florida woman, who is a victim of sexual abuse, claims that rape was called a "pre-existing condition" by several health insurance companies, which would have disqualified her for care.

In 2002, Chris Turner, a health insurance agent from Tampa, Florida, was drugged and raped during a business trip. When she conferred with a doctor after her assault, Turner was prescribed preventative anti-HIV drugs, and she later entered counseling to help deal with the residual psychological effects of her rape.
After she left that company she sought to buy health insurance on her own and has found out that she can't because...she's actually used health insurance in the past to treat medical conditions.

Did you catch the part where she was a health insurance agent? Since she knew how the system worked, she only addressed her situation hypothetically when she was calling companies about coverage because she knew that, "If you're rejected for coverage once it can put a black spot on your insurance record and keep you from getting health insurance in the future."

So, we have health insurance companies who will not cover you if you've ever been ill, who will drop you when you become ill, and who will refuse to cover you if another company won't cover you.

Here's a definition of insurance:
A promise of compensation for specific potential future losses in exchange for a periodic payment. Insurance is designed to protect the financial well-being of an individual, company or other entity in the case of unexpected loss.
Does it sound like these health "insurance" companies actually have anything to do with insurance? Yet these are the same companies who cry that a public option would create competition. Actually, a public option would hopefully be a real *insurance* plan and not just some gigantic money-sucking scam whose main goal is to *not* provide insurance to people.

Honestly, I'm tired of even thinking about how horiffic these companies are so I'm going to momentarily loudly tune this all out or I may spontaneously combust.

UPDATE: While checking my links, I noticed that the article that I pulled the quotes from at HuffPo is gone and has been replaced with a different article on this subject.
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