James Rainor

I work on the issues of health care reform, disparities in access to care, and how to improve health care for all Americans. Currently, I am focusing on those whom we exclude from the syste.

Congressional Republicans continue to call for repeal of health care reform even as reports surface that the insurance giant WellPoint has been singling out breast cancer patients for “investigation, with the intent to cancel their policies” and even using a computer algorithm to systematically target them:

The dropped women had no idea that WellPoint was using a computer algorithm that automatically targeted them and every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies. In response to the reports, by reporter Murray Waas in Reuters, yesterday Speaker Pelosi said:

WellPoint's practices of dropping anyone's coverage when they get sick — whether a woman with breast cancer or any other patient — is exactly the kind of insurance company abuse our new health care law prohibits.