The Most Outrageous Examples Of Health Insurers Denying Coverage (PHOTOS)

For millions of Americans, adequate health care is still out of reach -- and not just because of spiraling premium costs.

As President Obama pointed out in a NYT op-ed last summer, a recent survey found that over the last three years, more than 12 million Americans were either refused overall coverage, refused coverage for a specific condition or subject to higher premium costs.

And even those who believe they're fully insured may not be as protected as they hope. Recurring examples of insurers digging up and scrutinizing customers' old records after they get sick suggest perverse incentives for companies to dump their customers once they fall ill. Some insurance companies have even been found to award bonuses and better performance reviews to employees who revoke the most policies.

We compiled a list of some of the worst cases of insurance companies denying sick customers access to medical care. Check them out below -- and if you've been denied coverage, click "Participate" below and tell us your story.

Dropped After Testing HIV Positive

After 17-year-old college student Jerome Mitchell tested positive for HIV in 2002, his health insurance company retroactively annulled his coverage. Fortis Insurance claimed that a nurse's note written before his coverage began may have indicated that Mitchell had already known he had contracted HIV. The note turned out to be an error, and earlier this year, the South Carolina Supreme Court called the company's behavior "reprehensible" and ordered it to pay Mitchell $10 million in damages.

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Worst Denials Of Insurance Coverage

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Has your insurer dropped your health coverage -- or the coverage of someone you know? Have you been a victim of "rescission" for a pre-existing condition or other technicality?

HuffPost is asking its readers to share their experiences of health insurance rejection or cancellation.

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Click PARTICIPATE. Sum up your story in the SUMMARY field. Tell us your story in the DESCRIPTION field. Submit a photo and tell us where you live.

Comments

[drxcreatures]

10:10 PM on 03/21/2010

I was denied Medicaid 'cause I have no husband or kids. Also, 'cause my parents left me, when I was a baby. Can you believe that? LOL

[PlatoSunTsu]

05:29 AM on 02/22/2010

Would the real "death panels" please step forward.

[medic628]

12:10 AM on 02/22/2010

Worse that a mob shakedown!

[clearasmud]

08:01 AM on 02/21/2010

Apparently the Presidents HCR Plan is up and it contains a Public Option

whitehouse.gov

Offers a public health insurance option to provide the uninsured and those who can’t find affordable coverage with a real choice.

[MaryfromIL]

07:59 PM on 02/20/2010

46,000 die every year due to lack of health insurance.

How many other lives are ruined, as they suffer the effects of chronic illness without the means to get medication? And the cost of those affect the general public in many ways, like providing SS disability, lost of tax revenue when the chronically ill can't work, etc.

Such as diabetics, who end up with amputations or blind. Or the social security provided to children whose sole parent dies. And extra costs to Medicare and Medicaid when the uninsured person is eligible for that. Or the nursing home Medicaid pays for when the chronically ill end up there, instead of working.. and paying taxes.

My neighbor has been in a walker and wheelchair for years; she had rheumatoid arthritis for 12 years, just as I have. But she had no health insurance as a stay at home wife of an older man, whereas I had group insur thru my company. Now she is getting many surgeries after she reached 65 on Medicare. I don't use a walker or wheelchair, and I worked and paid taxes those 12 years, raised my children and saved for retirement. I have a life now, hers is that of a disabled person. If her husband passes away, she will end up in state care. And I'm on my way to the gym.

[MaryfromIL]

07:50 PM on 02/20/2010

My 23 year old healthy son was just denied insurance because he was too thin! That's right, his BMI was low, because he's tall and thin.

So now that is an exclusion for him on the policy. Meaning if he comes down with cancer or any illness that has weight loss as a side effect they won't cover it.

Meanwhile, my other two kids work for large companies, and their BMI is also low. But because they are in group plans, there is no exclusion for that.

I was 5'4" and 90 lbs at age 21, so it's just a family trait, not a sign of illness.

[MaryfromIL]

08:08 PM on 02/20/2010

Even more ironic, when my son was a baby, he would have been excluded for too HIGH BMI!!

He was 10 lbs when born, and 30 lbs at one year. Only thing he ever had wrong with him in over 20 years is whooping cough.

[lokywoky]

06:18 PM on 02/20/2010

People in the Tea Party movement are yelling about the government getting involved in healthcare.

I'd rather have the government than these insurance companies. Here's why. In government health care (Medicare, Medicaid, VA) if you are eligible, you are enrolled. Your premiums are the same as every one else's. They don't ask for your medical files back to the day you were born. Whatever is wrong is taken care of. That's what an insurance "pool" is for - to spread the risks across the largest group possible.

Private insurance ripoff companies try to get every single person into the individual (Pool of one) market. Then they rate you based on your gender, age, where you live, and then they pore through your medical history looking for something, anything, to deny you coverage. Talk about death panels! They do exist - just in the private sector, not in the government one.

Open your eyes people!!!

[Barbara Wilcox]

09:32 PM on 02/24/2010

Show me ONE teabagger over 65 who's refused to sign up for Medicare on principle. Show me ONE.

[Jennifer Kowatch]

05:03 PM on 02/20/2010

The CEO's and Presidents of ALL of the health insurance companies (and many others) should be charged with murder and/or attempted murder! How many people have died because of their actions? They need to be sent to jail!

[Gidget1486]

05:01 PM on 02/20/2010

I'm not the brightest person when it comes to health care and politics, but couldn't the government regulate the health insurance companies like they do with car insurance companies?

For example, If I could not get car insurance somewhere becauseof my driving record, Virginia government will pick a insurance company and force them to provide you coverage at whatever Virginia deems reasonable.

Why can't the government regulate the health insurance companies like they do with so many other industries. Force one flat rate for all no matter what pre-existing condition. No coverage should be allowed to be denied. Your premium should be based on how many are insured on the policy, not for what illness that person has. It's like they think we chose to get sick so we should have to pay more.

I know the government system is basically the same principle, but I am just not for government health system, I am however for government regulated health care. Government should be in place to protect it's people, not run their lives.

I think regulation may help drive these health insurance companies to act more appropriately and who knows maybe even get them to compete for their customers business. If they all have the same rates and can't deny insurance, then they have to start repairing things elsewhere, like maybe customer service, which is SEVERELY lacking, at least from the personal experience I've had with at least 3 different insurance companies.

[oneofme2]

04:59 PM on 02/20/2010

Fortis is by far the worst of the insurance company offenders. The policies they write are rife with double speak that they can interpret in any way that most benefits them. How could we have let he insurance industry have so much power over the people it is supposed to serve. Grrrrr

[BOOWAH]

04:14 PM on 02/20/2010

The magic word is "SUE" That's the only way insurance giants will learn. When denying coverage costs them all of their profits, then and only then will true health reform take place. And "NEVER" let your Congressman or Senator vote for tort reform. It's your only weapon against the rich toady monopolies! Oust any politician that attempts to take your right to sue away.

[BabyMed]

08:01 PM on 02/23/2010

They are protected under ERISA...they can only be sued for the actual "denial" costs
Not the pain and suffering...death ...or legal fees..
Who can afford to take them on?

[ReasonableGuy]

05:38 PM on 02/19/2010

Each of these denials is outrageous. Each is an excellent example of why private "health insurance" should end. These firms, as good capitalist businesses, are in it to make money. If they can deny claims they spend less. If they can rescind insurance polices when a policyholder faces an expensive medical procedure they will. They have no moral sense. They have no humanity. They are profit making organisms. They do not "care" about their policyholders.

It was not always so. Health Insurance was the creation of non-profit organizations (the original Blue Cross and Blue Shield). It was in the last quarter of the 20th century that the non-profit insurers turned to profit taking organizations.

We need a public health care plan where everyone pays in automatically (a "tax") and where everyone is covered. Most of the rest of the developed world does it. So should we.

[rtb61]

09:35 PM on 02/19/2010

Those decisions are not the decisions of a corporation. They are the decisions of people, greedy, shallow, truly evil people. Not just one but several people where involved in those decisions, it is high time these people where outed, that they faced the public for acts. At all costs these people should be prevented from hiding behind the facades of corporations, you want serious reform in anything, then those people who commit atrocious acts need to know they will end up having to face the public for them.

[Daniel Lovejoy]

03:07 PM on 02/20/2010

The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are indeed individuals. It was just reaffirmed recently with the most recent ruling allowing corporations, as individuals, to give unlimited donations to politicians.

[WilliamRC]

12:01 PM on 02/19/2010

Not surprising at all. I was recently denied coverage because I have Asperger's Syndrome, which is just a mild form of Autism. Now I am an uninsured, recent graduate, with tons of student debt and little hope for a job. I feel real great right now.

[MaryfromIL]

07:46 PM on 02/20/2010

Illinois now allows young people to go back on their parent's insurance to or thru age 26. I heard they were trying to get a federal bill thru, may have been part of the reform bill. Worth checking on.

[leonhardsr]

10:42 AM on 02/18/2010

The first problen wih health care was the ridiculous Hillary Clinton Bus brigade that came up wiyh a plan her own Democrats laugh at. It cost the Tax payers a fortune.
Now President Ubama and the worst Congress in History came up with a plan that any one with a half of a braim would wonder. "Who DId WE Elect"?????

[LeftRight]

11:31 AM on 02/18/2010

Actually, while the plan that Hillary came up with wouldn't have solved all the problems, that was the RIGHTWINGERS who insisted that the companies stay in the game.

And as for the plans that the current Congress has come up with, before Joe the Senator got into the action, even the Senate's plan would have helped a LOT and cost FAR less than we're spending now!

[laaambchop]

09:32 AM on 02/21/2010

We elect politicians. And politicians get their info from special interest groups. Voters have the option of getting information from the horses mouth, so to speak. Then we can call them on their horsehsit.

this is just one of many sources: http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/

[stillable2think]

10:19 AM on 02/18/2010

The Supreme Court says $ = speech

Donate 51 dollars to the re-election campaigns of the first 51 Senators to support the public option!