No More Dumping Customers
The legislature made some progress yesterday in fixing the Blue Cross problem I posted about on Monday. Health-Access:
In a victory for consumers Tuesday, the Health Committee also passed AB1324 (De La Torre), which re-states and re-emphasizes California’s law prohibiting health insurers for canceling coverage consumers if they turn out to be sick.
This does not increase the penalties, but it puts more pressure on the insurance companies to treat their customers fairly.
Insurers opposed AB1324, but attacked it on unrelated issues regarding the bill's overall scope. For instance, the California Association of Health Plans, said they were concerned insurers would have to continue to cover patients even if premium payments had not been made for the patient.
De La Torre reiterated several times that the bill would not force health plans to pay for consumers that weren’t paying their premiums. It only addressed the narrow issue of health plans canceling coverage when it turned out consumers needed coverage.
Frankly, the insurance companies have no legitimate argument to attack the bill directly. There is no defense for their actions. Instead, they tried coming at it from the side, which De La Torre effectively parried. This should be a no brainer for the Assembly to pass, but I wish it has a bit more in the way of teeth.