How many sick Americans have been dumped or rejected by health insurance companies?
How many people in the U.S. have been denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition? How many have been dumped from coverage because they became ill enough that covering them was too expensive for the company?
As it is, insurance companies are allowed to dump coverage for people who get sick and deny coverage to people who are already sick. I’m aware that these things happen, but I don’t know how common they are.
I want to find an estimate for how many people in the U.S. have been dumped or rejected in any particular year or decade.
According to a recent national survey, approximately 12.6 million non-elderly Americans have been turned down for coverage due to a pre-existing condition in the last 3 years, and 1 in 10 cancer patients have been denied coverage and 6% have lost their coverage because they have been diagnosed with cancer. Also, over the past 5 years, 3 large insurers have been revoked coverage due to being too expensive to continue covering. You will find other numbers in the following link. And please, before anyone disputes it due to the source, take a look at the sources for the link. It is researched.
As for the other posters saying things like "countries with universal health care have death panels" and "the wait list for cancer screening is a year long" have you ever lived in a country with universal health care? Because I live in Canada, and if you do some research, you will find out that there are, in fact, no such things as death panels here. Also, when it comes to cancer screening, the wait lists are short. In fact, my mom, who is considered high risk for breast cancer, has never had to wait for a mammogram. She gets them on schedule every year. Plus, 85% of all cancer clinics in Canada have a wait time of 4 weeks or less for most types of cancer from initial diagnosis to treatment, and if the treatment is urgent, there is no wait. The problem is, when Americans who want to dispute the quality of care offered in Canada look at the numbers, they see numbers from 10 years ago and think that the situation is the same today. Canada’s health care system reached a critical point in the late 1990’s due to many budget cutbacks, but our government has been working hard and providing a lot of funding to improve the system to what we have today, which, in my opinion, is more than sufficient. Compared to the attitude of Canadians 10 years ago, you will find that today, many Canadians are happy with our health care system, and our only complaint is a lack of specialists in certain areas. From what I understand about the American system, this is a plague there as well.
July 17th, 2010 at 9:12 am
All of them
If you could see the actuarials the Insurance Corporations use to calculate rates. You would see that everyone is demographically placed in a downward spiral of rejection factors. eg Pre existing or Genetic probability, there is always a reason to reject a claim.
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July 17th, 2010 at 9:58 am
I’m sure that there are numbers somewhere.
While I cannot agree with the insurance companies dropping someone because of a condition they develop while insured, I can at least understand denying preexisting conditions. That is like wrecking your car, and then calling to get coverage after the accident.
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July 17th, 2010 at 10:43 am
Nope, I served my country and got VA benefits. There is always a way.
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July 17th, 2010 at 10:49 am
How many Canadians have been sent to a death panel? huh? why don’t you find the real truth and stop cherry picking information
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July 17th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Tell me one example of someone being dumped for making a claim.
Each state has insurance comissions that companies have to answer to.
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July 17th, 2010 at 11:41 am
No one should suffer and die from a fixable problem..Sorry i don’t have stats.
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July 17th, 2010 at 11:51 am
You will never know the exact number. You will get the Democrats number, which is always way over exaggerated and then you have the Republicans, which underestimate. So, think of a number between 0 and 250,000,000 and give us a 3rd option.
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July 17th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
I want to know how many people die in countries with universal health care because they had to wait a year for a cancer screening.
And if that’s all your worried about why wouldn’t the government just subsidize those with a pre-existing condition instead of taking over health care? It would be much cheaper, don’t ya think?
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July 17th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Not as many as people claim.
Remember that most people are on ‘group’ health insurance policies and cannot get dumped.
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July 17th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
My own mother, who is in perfect health, was denied private health care when she was in a situation to purchase private insurance after her business closed (by her choice) and the basis for that denial was that she had some tests done on her more than 10 years ago for some chest pains she had complained about that turned out to be nothing. No high blood pressure, no cholesterol issues, no surgeries, no arthritis. Oh wait, she is currently going through menopause.
Once you’re denied coverage, shopping around for other coverage is extremely difficult to do because you have to disclose to other prospective companies that you’ve attempted to obtain coverage and were denied.
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July 17th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Only time I ever lost coverage was when Clinton was screwing around with health care in the 90’s. He was saying if companies covered us at all they would have to pay all our coverage, so companies started dropping employees completely. Made it hard for me because I was just starting a family then.
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July 17th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
I honestly haven’t heard of any myself, but most of the people that I associate myself with are employed. I bought my own policy at one time and had no problem. I have had a few health problems in the past but nothing lingering.
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July 17th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
good question, but i think finding hard data (facts) regarding who/how many have been denied/canceled coverage is something the providers don’t want revealed. All i can say is, i personally was denied coverage and had to get an attorney to fight my insurer for my coverage rights. They finally relented and covered my claim (but did not cover my attorney fees). They "intimated" i was a "high risk" and so i fired them and went uninsured for six years, as other insurers said i had a "preexisting condition" that they refused to cover. True, my insurer did not technically cancel me, but the situation falls under the scope of your question, even though there is no "data" putting it in the "denied/canceled" category.
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July 17th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Too many. But apparently that is good and treating them is bad.
FACT – Insurance companies in the USA admit to pushing up prices, buying politicians and not paying out claims when they should [a]
FACT – PER PERSON the USA spends more on healthcare than any other nation on the planet [b]
FACT – Obama debated his plans before the election for healthcare [c]
FACT – the chance of a child under five of dying in the USA is greater than industrialised nations with universal health coverage [d]
FACT – Obama was elected by the American people to bring in change [e]
FACT – Obama wants to stop insurance companies screwing the American people [f]
FACT – The reforms Obama wants work in the Netherlands and in Switzerland [g]
If anyone can prove the facts above are wrong, e-mail me and let me know.
References :
[a] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/26/us-healthcare-obama-barack-change
[b] http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13899647
[c] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erspfMkqLN4
[d] http://www.unicef.org.uk/campaigns/publications/pdf/sowc08.pdf
[e] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/7697829.stm
[f] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8160058.stm
[g] http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/In-the-Literature/2008/May/Universal-Mandatory-Health-Insurance-in-The-Netherlands–A-Model-for-the-United-States.aspx
July 17th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
According to a recent national survey, approximately 12.6 million non-elderly Americans have been turned down for coverage due to a pre-existing condition in the last 3 years, and 1 in 10 cancer patients have been denied coverage and 6% have lost their coverage because they have been diagnosed with cancer. Also, over the past 5 years, 3 large insurers have been revoked coverage due to being too expensive to continue covering. You will find other numbers in the following link. And please, before anyone disputes it due to the source, take a look at the sources for the link. It is researched.
As for the other posters saying things like "countries with universal health care have death panels" and "the wait list for cancer screening is a year long" have you ever lived in a country with universal health care? Because I live in Canada, and if you do some research, you will find out that there are, in fact, no such things as death panels here. Also, when it comes to cancer screening, the wait lists are short. In fact, my mom, who is considered high risk for breast cancer, has never had to wait for a mammogram. She gets them on schedule every year. Plus, 85% of all cancer clinics in Canada have a wait time of 4 weeks or less for most types of cancer from initial diagnosis to treatment, and if the treatment is urgent, there is no wait. The problem is, when Americans who want to dispute the quality of care offered in Canada look at the numbers, they see numbers from 10 years ago and think that the situation is the same today. Canada’s health care system reached a critical point in the late 1990’s due to many budget cutbacks, but our government has been working hard and providing a lot of funding to improve the system to what we have today, which, in my opinion, is more than sufficient. Compared to the attitude of Canadians 10 years ago, you will find that today, many Canadians are happy with our health care system, and our only complaint is a lack of specialists in certain areas. From what I understand about the American system, this is a plague there as well.
References :
http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/denied_coverage/index.html
July 17th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Jim Bob said "How many Canadians have been sent to a death panel? huh?"
Answer… none
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I’m a Canadian.