Insurance Cancellation Questions Could Spread Beyond California

Today’s Health Blog jargon of the day is rescission, the insurance industry’s practice of revoking individual insurance policies because of health-related mistakes or omissions on the application for coverage. …

… Now it looks like the push-back against rescission may be spreading. Henry Waxman, a Democratic California Congressman, held a hearing on the subject yesterday and said his oversight committee plans to investigate the issue nationally.

“I understand that insurance companies need to protect themselves from fraud,” Waxman said in his opening statement. But “insurers are using technicalities or trumped-up ‘misrepresentations’ to rescind policies after individuals get sick and accumulate hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills.”

Do we have any readers who would be willing to monitor these hearings? If CSPAN isn’t covering them you can use the committee web site.