James Royce

James Royce is a former policy analyst for the United State Congress and federal DHHS on health care issues for more than two and one half decades.

WellPoint Routinely Targets Breast Cancer Patients
by Murray Waas

Shortly after they were diagnosed with breast cancer, each of the women learned that their health insurance had been canceled. There was Yenny Hsu, who lived and worked in Los Angeles. And there was Patricia Reilling, a successful art gallery owner from Louisville, Kentucky.One after another, shortly after a diagnosis of breast cancer, each of the women learned that their health insurance had been canceled. Neither of these women knew about the other. But besides their similar narratives, they had something else in common: Their health insurance carriers were subsidiaries of WellPoint, which has 33.7 million policyholders. They 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 automatic company search for some pretext to drop their policies, according to the Murray Waas article.s