Mark Thames

Thanks to Lucinda Marshall at Feminist Peace Network for pointing us to an amazing but also demoralizing investigation by Reuters of WellPoint, the giant health insurance company. Reuters uncovered iinformation that WellPoint utilized an algorithm that automatically triggers a fraud investigation into any policyholder diagnosed with breast cancer. Here's the crux of Murray Waas's findings: The dropped women had no idea that WellPoint was using a computer algorithm that automatically targete every policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Once singled out, the insurer then canceled their policies, Murray Waas' investigation found. Murray Waas did a similar investigation as well of Assurant Health, showing that company canceled the policies of anyone who tested HIV positive.