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An insurer is held accountable

post #1 of 12
2/23/08 at 11:04am
Thread Starter 
Insurer fined $9M for dropping cancer patient

What is more interesting is that the decision was from an arbitration judge which makes it harder for the insurance company to appeal.

I do hope that she does reimburse the state though so others can be helped the way she was.
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post #2 of 12
2/23/08 at 1:12pm
I'm glad the insurer has to pay damages - that was an outrage.
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post #3 of 12
2/23/08 at 10:38pm
Hopefully this will wake this country up. Insurance companies do this all the time and the problem is getting worse not better.

Unfortunately the majority of people who go through a nightmare such as this don't get any compensation.
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post #4 of 12
2/25/08 at 9:56pm
i have seen alot of stories like that.
they really need to make a law, about them not being allowed to drop people
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post #5 of 12
2/26/08 at 4:16am
I'm glad she won, don't get me wrong, but isn't $9Mil a little excessive? we're complaining about rising cost of insurance and then someone who owed, yes a significant amount, gets $9 Mil? Is that the cost of the entire breat cancer treatment?
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post #6 of 12
2/26/08 at 4:32am
hmm i dont know. But yea, it can. my mothers was over 2million or so.plus i would be that after they dropped her, all type of medical treatments etc where stopped. So i would bet she went into a great deal of stress. how according to the article it was 129,000 in unpaid bills.
you pay these people and you expect them to live up to there end of the deal.

dropping people as soon as they get sick is something that insurance business has been doing the last few years. I hope that this teaches them a lesson you cant just drop someone. who spent years paying you.
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post #7 of 12
2/26/08 at 5:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by theimp98 View Post
i have seen alot of stories like that.
they really need to make a law, about them not being allowed to drop people
Part of the reason that there is no law saying that Heath insurance companies can't drop people is because heath insurance isn't mandatory. However, there is a law saying that for car insurance if you are rejected from two companies then a third has to step in and take you. (This is in Ohio)
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post #8 of 12
2/26/08 at 6:25am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by lunasmom View Post
I'm glad she won, don't get me wrong, but isn't $9Mil a little excessive? we're complaining about rising cost of insurance and then someone who owed, yes a significant amount, gets $9 Mil? Is that the cost of the entire breat cancer treatment?
I was wondering about the excessiveness of the $9mil myself. It was a punitive action against the insurance company and the $120,000 that she had in expenses would have not made an impression on the company.

This is something that I have had a hard time with on the Tort law. The companies do need to have a fine that gets their attention, but the individual receiving it really doesn't necessarily need that money. Their costs should be adequately covered, but I would rather see the company have to pay punitive monies into a fund for uninsured people than for it to go to one person.
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post #9 of 12
2/26/08 at 8:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by katachtig View Post
The companies do need to have a fine that gets their attention, but the individual receiving it really doesn't necessarily need that money. Their costs should be adequately covered, but I would rather see the company have to pay punitive monies into a fund for uninsured people than for it to go to one person.
That would make a great deal of sense! In fact, I can see two positive outcomes being possible: [1] that there would be fewer wacky ridiculous law suits, if the plaintiff did not have the prospect of collecting the penalty himself; [2] that overall costs would go down, because that money is staying in the system to serve the many, rather than going to one person.
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post #10 of 12
2/26/08 at 11:50am
With so many lawyers working on contingent fees, I imagine most of the settlement will land up in an attorney's pocket.
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post #11 of 12
2/26/08 at 3:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by katachtig View Post
I was wondering about the excessiveness of the $9mil myself. It was a punitive action against the insurance company and the $120,000 that she had in expenses would have not made an impression on the company.

This is something that I have had a hard time with on the Tort law. The companies do need to have a fine that gets their attention, but the individual receiving it really doesn't necessarily need that money. Their costs should be adequately covered, but I would rather see the company have to pay punitive monies into a fund for uninsured people than for it to go to one person.
Exactly! Unless the total treatment (without insurance) is the $8.4 Mil, I think that $750K for emotional distress is a bit much. $50K is enough to pay for eehhh.... quite a few years of therapy.

My thought is take enough money to pay off whatever bills you owe and future bills at that, then enough to pay off the lawyers fees, and finally any money you lost for this "emotional distress". Money does help with emotional stress and can solve it, but within reason...
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post #12 of 12
2/27/08 at 12:24pm
I agree that she should get back what she paid out including lawyer fees and some monies for stress, but giving those huge amounts to claimants hurts all of us. Everyone will pay with higher insurance rates.

I've often thought that a lot of claims are very much overpaid which has triggered more people to sue, companies trying to protect themselves and lawyers getting rich. And, we, the poor people pay in the long term.
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