Eugene McCallum

Eugene McCallum is a writer and blogger who has specialized in writing about national health care policy and equal access to care.

As he campaigned for his historic health-care bill, President Barack Obama pilloried insurance industry practices. It was his way of drumming up popular support — and it worked. Making the case for reform in a September address to Congress, Obama cited the case of Robin Beaton, among others. She had her insurance yanked shortly after a breast cancer diagnosis, according to a recently released Reuters investigation. What the White House didn’t know is that WellPoint, the nation’s largest insurance company by membership, had used computer algorithms to identify Beaton and many other breast cancer patients and launched a fraud investigation with the intent of canceling their policies. But as the great investigative reporter Murray Waas reports for Reuters, the new health-care law does not necessarily curtail these and other practices the president so decried. For that to happen, Obama might have to use his bully pulpit to put some teeth into the legislation. Have a Kleenex nearby as you read through this Murray Waas story.