Sam Joseph

Sam Joseph is a health care activisit who fought for the passage of the health care reform law, and now works for even greater acesss for more Americans.

Federal investigators have told Reuters that WellPoint, the country’s largest insurance company, is using an algorithm to target women with breast cancer for the express purpose of dropping their coverage.

Murray Waas writes that WellPoint “specifically targeted women with breast cancer for aggressive investigation with the intent to cancel their policies”:

"None of the women knew about the others. But they had something

in common: Their health insurance carriers were subsidiaries of WellPoint , which has 33.7 million policyholders — more than any other health insurance company in the United States.Before they fell ill, none had any problems with their insurance.

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 immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies"