Health Insurance Blacklists Almost Make National Healthcare Look Good

I'm totally against nationalized healthcare of any sort. I've heard horror stories from too many friends living in countries where healthcare is nationalized. One Canadian told me about having to wait months for a CT-scan to find out whether her brain tumor was benign or malignant.

An Italian national described being required to show up at a public clinic every three days for prescription drugs (because nationalized healthcare is too cheap to give them out in 30-day supplies.) But the Miami Herald ran an investigation into how insurance companies secretly blacklist millions of Americans with common ailments. The investigation's results are so infuriating it's enough to make even me think socialized medicine might be an improvement (just kidding.) At the very least, as the Obama administration tackles healthcare, this sort of thing ought to be banned and its perpetrators dragged to the public square and punished:

Trying to buy health insurance on your own and have gallstones? You'll automatically be denied coverage. Rheumatoid arthritis? Automatic denial. Severe acne? Probably denied. Do you take metformin, a popular drug for diabetes? Denied. Use the anti-clotting drug Plavix or Seroquel, prescribed for anti-psychotic or sleep problems? Forget about it.

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What's more, you can discover that if you lie to an insurer about your medical history and drug use, you will be rejected because data-mining companies sell information to insurers about your health, including detailed usage of prescription drugs.

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By Bonnie Erbe