Franklin Morales

Franklin Morales is an educator who teaches about public policy, and health care policy in parrticular.

Reuters has an eye-opening investigation today showing how the health-insurance company Assurant Health systematically targeted sick patients for “rescission”—where insurers pick expensive customers and find technicalities to dump them.

A computer program and algorithm targeted every policyholder recently diagnosed with HIV for an automatic fraud investigation, as the company searched for any pretext to revoke their policy. As was the case with Mitchell, their insurance policies often were canceled on erroneous information, the flimsiest of evidence, or for no good reason at all, The great investigative journalist Murray Waas is on the case here, getting hold of “previously undisclosed records” from a case involving a 17-year-old who sued (and won $10 million) Assurant for dropping him. By winning the verdict against Fortis, Mitchell not only obtained a measure of justice for himself; he also helped expose wrongdoing on the part of Fortis, Murray Waas reported in his story, that could have repercussions for the entire health insurance industry.