The House hearings on rescission - the retroactive cancellation of individual health insurance policies - were over a month ago, but after its initial run through Daily Kos it seems to have waited a bit before popping up on Baseline and Slate. James Kwak at Baseline described the practice as rare, affecting only 0.5% of the population....If the top 5% is the absolute largest population for whom rescission would make sense, the probability of having your policy cancelled given that you have filed a claim is fully 10% (0.5% rescission/5.0% of the population). If you take the LA Times estimate that $300mm was saved by abrogating 20,000 policies in California ($15,000/policy), you are somewhere in the 15% zone, depending on the convexity of the top section of population. If, as I suspect, rescission is targeted toward the truly bankrupting cases - the top 1%, the folks with over $35,000 of annual claims who could never be profitable for the carrier - then the probability of having your policy torn up given a massively expensive condition is pushing 50%. One in two. You have three times better odds playing Russian Roulette.
Who here remembers the shocking scene in the first Indiana Jones flick, when the professor is confronted by a crazed, Berber-wrapped, Islamofascist, knife- wielding dervish in a market? He pulls out his gun.
A gun: Read your contract. Even in a lawless state, you need to read your contract. Even if your coverage is negotiated by your employer --so all you receive is a certificate of coverage envelope, containing 1,000pages of benefit terms and claims instructions-- get hold of the group's master policy. It may be turned against your ignorance. You will be looking for mandatory clauses, that are notices such as "free-look" period, guaranteed insurability or "future increase option", and renewability provisions required by state commissions. There are five, mutually exclusive mechanisms that determine lawful termination of a policy, irrespective of mandates governing insurers' obligations in the event of (mis)representation of "pre-existing conditions" and their purported mind-boggling expenses.
Cue best moment in film. keep to the Fen Causeway
