Too Important

There’s an old saying in America that you should never discuss religion or politics in public, because of the very high probability of offending someone who might be listening. People don’t usually consider it these days, but this country was originally settled by people seeking either religious or political freedom, or occasionally both; the right of all Americans to maintain their own faith regarding religion and governance is still considered the cornerstone of our entire society. Unfortunately, a side effect of that freedom is that all of our citizens also have the right to believe that theirs is the only true faith, and that everyone else is wrong; another side effect is the right to say so, loudly, and to take umbrage at anyone who disagrees with them. Which is bad enough when it comes to religious intolerance; some of the things that get political in this country are enough to make you think the entire place is a madhouse…

Case in point, consider the tragic story of a young man from South Caroline named Jerome Mitchell, who had his insurance company cancel his policy shortly after he was diagnosed with HIV in 2002. The company claimed that a clerical error in Mitchell’s file proved that he had the condition before he purchased their policy and had failed to disclose it on his application; this constitutes fraud and frees the company from the expensive obligation to provide the treatments needed to save Mitchell’s life. Presented with certified records, signed statements, and even its own internal memos that documented the error, the company simply ignored their (former) customer, their own underwriter, healthcare providers and eventually Mitchell’s attorney, refusing to budge on the matter until finally sued – a lawsuit which has since been upheld at the Appellate Court and State Supreme Court levels, and which the company continues to fight…

You can read the Reuters story here if you want to, but if you found the original story repulsive, the twist ending will really upset you: an investigation that resulted from the Mitchell case found that his insurer, Assurant Health (formerly Fortis) had been systematically investigating every new HIV claim and trying to find grounds for declaring fraud and cancelling the policy. Similar cases are now springing up all over the country, as various regulatory agencies start looking into these “rescinded” account cancellations, thousands of which are apparently blatantly illegal. What makes this political (and, at least to me, fantastical) is when you read the comments section on such stories, and find all of the people who are claiming that this is an argument AGAINST healthcare reform…

In case anyone missed it, this is a case of blatant and deliberate fraud on the part of Assurant; using information they knew to be false in order to violate a contractual obligation. Not satisfied with that, however, they also withheld treatment that an innocent man needed in order to survive, refused to produce any account of their procedures or the process of how this decision was made, destroyed evidence, and appealed the legal loss for at least six additional years (the process continues). Why the people who made these decisions have not be charged with fraud, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to commit a felony is beyond me; if I was the relevant prosecutor I already would have, and I’d throw in criminal negligence and murder (under the depraved indifference statute) if the customer in question had died as the result of their actions. None of which addresses the real point here, which is that this has nothing to do with politics…

In any industry, companies which charge exorbitant rates, pay their senior management team outrageous salaries, invest money like idiots, and refuse to provide the services for which they are charging are committing fraud, and should be attacked in both civil and criminal actions, as well as by targeted legislation, until they stop. I don’t care what party you belong to or who you think should be running the country, fraud is still fraud, and unethical business practice is still unethical business practice, and both of them are wrong no matter what your personal beliefs happen to be...

Unless there’s a religion and/or political party somewhere that is in favor of fraud, obstruction of justice, depraved indifference and conspiracy, of course. In which case things are even worse than I’d thought…