Healthcare

Health Insurance Denial Rates

A California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee study concluded:

Claims denial rates by leading California insurers, first six months of 2009:

• PacifiCare -- 39.6 percent
• Cigna -- 32.7 percent
• HealthNet -- 30 percent
• Kaiser Permanente -- 28.3 percent
• Blue Cross -- 27.9 percent
• Aetna -- 6.4 percent

So in California you have a roughly 30 percent chance of being turned down for medical coverage -- regardless of whether or not it will save your life.

It's almost as though there are panels (motivated by profit) deciding whether you live or die. I think there's a shorter phrase to describe this. Hmm. What could it be?