WellPoint Agrees To Pay $11.8M to California Hospitals Over Health Insurance Policy Cancellations

WellPoint on Monday agreed to pay $11.8 million to about 480 private and public hospitals in California to resolve allegations that subsidiary Anthem Blue Cross failed to pay the bills of patients who had their health insurance policies canceled after they received treatment, the Los Angeles Times reports (Girion, Los Angeles Times, 7/8). In 2006, the hospitals filed a class-action lawsuit against WellPoint over allegations that Anthem illegally conducted investigations of patient medical histories to find pre-existing medical conditions and application inconsistencies to rescind their policies after they filed expensive claims (Gullo, Bloomberg/Houston Chronicle, 7/7).

Are we clear on why additional regulation of insurance companies won’t do any good? They don’t respect the laws we have.