By Magic Love Hose
A little over a year ago, the Department of Health and Human Services had to demand that a health insurance company actually provide health insurance.
On a related note, Eberron is the best D&D setting.
Back to the first point. In April 2010, a Reuters investigation unearthed that WellPoint had a practice in place to drop insurance coverage from women with breast cancer, to avoid having to pay for the treatments involved.
The women paid their premiums on time. Before they fell ill, neither had any problems with their insurance. Initially, they believed their policies had been canceled by mistake.
They had no idea that WellPoint was using a computer algorithm that automatically targeted them and every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies, according to government regulators and investigators.
They built a special computer program to find ways to weasel out of insurance payouts.
Well, at least it wasn’t something extremely commonplace, like pregnancy -
“It’s not like these companies don’t like women because they are women,” says Jeff Isaacs, the chief assistant Los Angeles city attorney who runs the office’s 300-lawyer criminal division. “But there are two things that really scare them and they are breast cancer and pregnancy. Breast cancer can really be a costly thing for them. Pregnancy is right up there too. Their worst-case scenario is that a child will be born with some disability and they will have to pay for that child’s treatment over the course of a lifetime.“
Yeah, I threw up in my mouth a little, too.
Kathleen Sebelius of the Department of Health and Human Services had to step in:
I was surprised and disappointed to read media accounts indicating that WellPoint routinely rescinds health insurance coverage from women recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Today’s report from Reuters indicating that your company “has specifically targeted women with breast cancer for aggressive investigation with the intent to cancel their policies” is disturbing, and this practice is deplorable.
As you know, the practice described in this article will soon be illegal. The Affordable Care Act specifically prohibits insurance companies from rescinding policies, except in cases of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of material fact.
WellPoint should not wait to end the unconscionable practice of deliberately working to deny health insurance coverage to women diagnosed with breast cancer. I urge you to immediately cease these practices and abandon your efforts to rescind health insurance coverage from patients who need it most.
On to point 2. Eberron is a setting – a world, if you will, for Dungeons and Dragons games to take place in. Most D&D settings are just variations on the Consensus Medieval Fantasy Universe, but Eberron carves out a unique niche. Instead of a version of medieval Europe with elves and magic and dragons, it is a version of post-World War 1 Europe with elves, magic and dragons. It draws as much from Frodo and the One Ring, as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Post-World War 1 is where a lot of our modern world comes from, so Eberron and its heroes and villains always felt more resonant with me than those of a normal fantasy universe. One of the major countries even has a Parliament and a form of democracy – you could call Eberron the “progressive” D&D setting, or at least, as progressive as anything can be where you kill things and take their stuff. It’s a world where magic has taken on the role that technology has in ours, causing social upheaval and change.
One of these changes is in the form of the Dragonmarked Houses, a group of people with hereditary magical birthmarks who have used these powers to corner and control the magical economies of the continent of Khorvaire. They are essentially robber barons, with political power on par with kings and governments. One of these houses is House Jorasco, masters of the Mark of Healing, who have magical curative powers – that they charge quite a lot of money for. If you can’t pay, they don’t treat you. And if you fall behind on payments, they call out their legbreakers.
But the following January, after Reilling suffered a life-threatening staph infection requiring two emergency surgeries in three days, Anthem balked and refused to pay more. They soon canceled her insurance entirely.
Unable to afford additional necessary surgeries for nearly 16 months, Reilling ended up severely disabled and largely confined to her home. As a result of her crushing medical bills, the once well-to-do businesswoman is now dependent on food stamps.
Eberron is a world where you can take on a magical health care cartel, and kick the snot out of their hired goons.
Tell me that doesn’t sound appealing right now.
Art by Wayne Goddamn Reynolds. Click to enlarge.
Magic Love Hose is not a professional politician. You can trust him because of in spite of that. He has a website and a Twitter and is 60% sure how to use them.
