When Patsy Bates began her battle against breast cancer, she didn't expect she would also have to battle her health insurer too.
Bates faced the bureaucratic diagnosis of rescission: when a health insurer retroactively cancels your insurance policy. But in a precedent-setting decision announced last week, a California judge ordered Bates' insurer to pay her more than $9 million for dropping her policy after it learned she had cancer.
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Not only did she receive a $9 million punitive damages settlement against Health Net Inc., one of the largest for-profit insurers in California, but the company also announced Friday that it had stopped the controversial practice of canceling sick policyholders' policies.
In the landmark ruling, the outraged judge wrote: "She had valid health insurance ? when the rug was pulled from underneath, and that occurred at a time when she is diagnosed with breast cancer, one of the leading causes of death for women."
Bates faced the bureaucratic diagnosis of rescission: when a health insurer retroactively cancels your insurance policy. But in a precedent-setting decision announced last week, a California judge ordered Bates' insurer to pay her more than $9 million for dropping her policy after it learned she had cancer.
...
Not only did she receive a $9 million punitive damages settlement against Health Net Inc., one of the largest for-profit insurers in California, but the company also announced Friday that it had stopped the controversial practice of canceling sick policyholders' policies.
In the landmark ruling, the outraged judge wrote: "She had valid health insurance ? when the rug was pulled from underneath, and that occurred at a time when she is diagnosed with breast cancer, one of the leading causes of death for women."
~TheDoc - ICQ7765825
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