I saw this a few days ago, but I'm still trying to rest during the holiday....Atrios:

California health insurers have a duty to check the accuracy of applications for coverage before issuing policies -- and should not wait until patients run up big medical bills, a state appeals court ruled Monday.

The court also said insurers could not cancel a medical policy unless they showed that the policyholder willfully misrepresented his health or that the company had investigated the application before it issued coverage.

"These facts raise the specter that Blue Shield does not immediately rescind health care contracts upon learning of potential grounds for rescission, but waits until after the claims submitted under that contract exceed the monthly premiums being collected," the court wrote.

A health plan, the court went on, "may not adopt a 'wait and see' attitude after learning of facts justifying rescission." The court said companies could not continue to "collect premiums while keeping open its rescission option if the subscriber later experiences a serious accident or illness that generates large medical expenses."...read on

The courts have caught on to their con game and it's starting to unravel...

Dallas Morning News: Mortgage lenders aren't the only ones showing more interest in your credit score these days – the health industry is creating its own score to judge your ability to pay. [...]

The score is already raising questions from consumer advocacy groups that fear it will be checked before patients are treated. People with low medical credit scores could receive lower-quality care than those with a healthy medFICO, they argue.

Your life usually isn't at stake when a credit report turns up something negative, but in this case it very well might be. To some extent these types of decisions have already been being made by some hospitals, like when they just dump indigent patients on skid row, but this can only make it easier for other hospitals to make similar decisions for even more people. While a person's overall credit score is largely based on voluntary purchases which one typically has some control over (assuming there isn't an error), health care debt is largely involuntary. Even someone lucky enough to have health insurance can suddenly find themselves overwhelmed with debt they cannot afford through no fault of their own. A study two years ago found that "34% of U.S. adults ages 19 to 64 face problems with medical bills or have medical debt, although 62% of those individuals have health insurance."

So, what do you think will happen once the hospital finds out your "medical credit score" doesn't measure up?

Rudy Giuliani was treated for prostate cancer. John McCain has been treated for melanoma, the most serious type of skin malignancy. Fred Thompson was diagnosed with lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system.

And as the LA Times’ Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar explained in a good piece today, all three could be denied healthcare insurance under their own healthcare plans.

All three have offered proposals with the stated aim of helping the 47 million people in the U.S. who have no health insurance, including those with preexisting medical conditions. But under the plans all three have put forward, cancer survivors such as themselves could not be sure of getting coverage — especially if they were not already covered by a government or job-related plan and had to seek insurance as individuals.

“Unless it’s in a state that has very strong consumer protections, they would likely be denied coverage,” said economist Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, who has reviewed the candidates’ proposals. “People with preexisting conditions would not be able to get coverage or would not be able to afford it.”

It offers a helpful contrast between the downsides of the two parties’ approaches to healthcare. The problem with the Dems’ plans is that they’re expensive. The problem with the Republicans’ policies is that sick people of modest means can’t get health insurance.

The Republican presidential hopefuls seem to realize that their plans leave millions of vulnerable Americans behind, but also realize that the alternative is government regulation — specifically, telling insurers that they can’t exclude people with pre-existing conditions, and can’t price these people out of coverage. Given a choice between a large gap of uninsured and government-imposed safeguards for Americans, the GOP candidates prefer the prior.

Greetings and salutations, vixens and villains. Melissa McEwan, High Priestess of the Cult of the Feminazi Cooter at your service once again, having just emerged from our top secret headquarters in an undisclosed location after the usual Wednesday morning ritualistic sacrifice of a snowflake baby. I tell ya, it's always work, work, work disseminating our radical agenda. Catapulting the propaganda alone sometimes takes all morning. Anyway, time for the round-up. Git along, little dogies:

First, it's come to my attention that in Sunday's round-up, I inadvertently pointed to Jill's post twice, without pointing to Mustang Bobby's at all. Here is the corrected line: Mustang Bobby kicks around Giuliani and his BFF Bernie. (Sorry, MB!)

CREW: Where are all the missing emails? What's taking so long? What gives?

Tom Hilton reports that there are two kinds of Republican sex—and both of them are illegal, of course.

Maha happily finds that Jonathan Cohn makes a "Best Case Against Universal Health Care" only to demolish it.

Tara Smith shares an inspiring story about turning misfortune into opportunity; perhaps similar guerilla campaigns just like this one to raise awareness about medical donations could help countless numbers of people.

Michael Stickings passes on useful instructions on how to respond to global warming deniers, if "Damn, you're a brainless moron not worth my time" doesn't appeal to you.

eRobin has got the latest Scene from the Class Struggle on Capitol Hill (and an associated action item).

Ed is fed up to the teeth with "honest mistakes" and the collection of useless, warmongering miscreants who want to continue to make them with impunity.

And some Quick Hits: Fluffy Tarantulas … Conservatives Have No Clothes … A Tale of Two Countries … and Accursed Tree Murderers.

Seeya tomorrow! If you've got any hot tips, email me at shakespeares_sister at Comcast dot net.

Via The LA Times: (h/t Scarce)

One of the state's largest health insurers set goals and paid bonuses based in part on how many individual policyholders were dropped and how much money was saved.

Woodland Hills-based Health Net Inc. avoided paying $35.5 million in medical expenses by rescinding about 1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006. During that period, it paid its senior analyst in charge of cancellations more than $20,000 in bonuses based in part on her meeting or exceeding annual targets for revoking policies, documents disclosed Thursday showed.

Health Net had sought to keep the documents secret even after it was forced to produce them for the hearing, arguing that they contained proprietary information and could embarrass the company. But the arbitrator in the case, former Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sam Cianchetti, granted a motion by lawyers for The Times, opening the hearing to reporters and making public all documents produced for it. Read on...

There is little doubt that similar policies exist at nearly every health insurance provider.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

Keith Olbermann looks at Oregon's Measure 50, a proposed cigarette tax to fund for children's health insurance, which ended up being the most expensive referendum in the state's history. The bill failed, no doubt due in part to the enormous money pumped into the No on 50 movement by cigarette companies and Republicans like Grover Norquist.

Michael Moore chimes in with a hope that the Democratic presidential contenders reconsider their own health plans to eliminate the part that is broken: letting health insurance companies dictate treatment. To that end, he encourages those interested in really fixing health care in this country to support John Conyers' HR 676.

(Guest blogged by BillW)

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Just last week Bush vetoed $35 billion for sick children, but now he needs $46 billion more for the occupation in Iraq.

"The Iraq war is now costing $330 million a day. That could pay for 1700 more border patrol agents, or provide health-care for an extra 45,000 military veterans, or the funds from just one day in Iraq would give 270,000 more kids coverage under SCHIP."

On Wed the House will have another hearing on the long-term cost of the war. The last time the figure was $1 trillion and it's a no-brainer the new figure is going to be much higher.

Jack Cafferty: "I've got a quick question Wolf. Who approves the funding for the war?

Wolf Blitzer: The United States Congress

Jack Cafferty: Oh yeah. right. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and those Democrats who were elected to do something about the war. I forgot.

Also, surprise! (not) There's a new bin Laden tape out, this time urging al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent groups to merge forces. His timing couldn't possibly have been any better coordinated to conveniently help boogieman Congress into getting Bush all the money he wants, could it?

John Amato: "Obey is talking tough, but until I see them do something about this---I will take it with a grain of salt."

Remember when comedian Rush Limbaugh mocked Michael J. Fox during the 2006 campaign? It seems he was at it again last night on FOXNews' Hannity & Colmes, where he not only denied attacking Graeme Frost, but went on to mock his voice -- Graeme has a paralyzed vocal cord.

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Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post joined Keith to talk about what she describes as a very low point for the right as gasbags like Limbaugh continue to dig themselves deeper into a hole.

And while Congress turns the children's healthcare debate into a contest over which fully covered by health insurance legislator can express the most outrage, The White House puts its satin sleep mask on. Again.

Rockridge Institute: George Bush doesn't want you to think about sick children. He wants you thinking about the fine print of health insurance policies. He wants us to debate types of coverage, premiums and the size of networks, and whether we can afford catastrophic, comprehensive, limited, mini-med or scheduled health insurance. But George Bush doesn't want you thinking about all the sick children left behind in America. And insurance companies don't want you thinking about all the children who they won't help, just so they can maximize profits. ...The Rockridge Institute has produced a video spot that dramatizes the way in which our current health care system is based on excluding part of the American family -- concluding with the provocative question: "Which one of your children would you leave unprotected?"

Today some righties are hyperventilating about a story in the Daily Mail — “Father delivered baby after partner was turned away from NHS hospital - TWICE.” A laboring woman in the UK was sent home because, she was told, there were no beds available in the hospital. Eventually her husband delivered the baby at home.

The British National Health Service has big problems that, as I understand it, stem less from the system itself than from massive underfunding of the system. Brits have been trying to get by on the cheap, and it shows. To illustrate, here is Figure One from the University of Maine’s “The U.S. Health Care System: The Best in the World, or Just the Most Expensive?” (PDF).

The figure shows spending for health care per capita in various nations, in 1998. I added “USA” and “UK.” In 1998, the U.S. was spending $4,178 per capita and the UK was spending $1,461 per capita. I understand that in recent years the Brits have been increasing their spending on NHS, but it takes a long time to make up for years of underfunding.

I bring this up because one cannot fairly compare the U.S. and U.K. systems without considering the funding issue. This does not, of course, stop righties from comparing them.

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