Medical Insurance and the English Language
George Orwell would be astounded at the abuse of the English language committed by WellPoint spokeswoman Shannon Troughton who makes "objectively pro-fascist left deviationism" sound as clear and coherant as "the sky is blue."
Blue Cross parent WellPoint said in a statement Thursday that it continued to disagree about what the law requires.
"California law is clear that rescission generally does not require a showing of intent to deceive or willful misrepresentation," WellPoint spokeswoman Shannon Troughton said. "All that is required for misrepresentation to be 'intentional' is that the true facts be known to the applicant.
Thus "intentional" does not imply "willful" and "intentional misreprecentation" does not imply an intent to deceive.
I assume it is possible to find some way to make some sense out of Troughton's statement. My guess is that it is based on the argument that people know what is in every document they have been given to read whether they understand it or not. I doubt Ms Troughton would like to be interrogated under oath about the contents of a document written in Arabic she was given. By her standard, she knows what it says so false statements about its content and the statement that she doesn't know what it says would both be perjury.
This unatributed quote is also beautiful
"Indianapolis-based WellPoint disputed the findings, saying it acted legally and that some rescissions are necessary to combat fraud.
"The vast majority of Blue Cross' rescissions are unquestionably proper under any criteria," WellPoint said."
Which would be like a serial killer saying "the vast majority of days last year I didn't kill anyone" were it not for the fact that the investigation showed 0 of 90 proper rescissions and 0% sure doesn't sound like the vast majority to me.
Via
Kevin Drum who wrote
BEST HEALTHCARE IN THE WORLD....PART 87....The state of California has fined Blue Cross $1 million for illegally cancelling policies:
The investigation found that Blue Cross used computer programs and a dedicated department to systematically cancel the policies of pregnant women and the chronically ill regardless of whether they intentionally lied on their applications to cover up pre-existing medical conditions, a standard required by state law for canceling individual policies. Regulators examined 90 randomly selected cases of policy cancellations and found violations in each one.
Italics mine. According to the LA Times, the fine came about as the result of an "unprecedented investigation" prompted by a story they ran a few months ago. Maybe next time state regulators shouldn't wait.
