Health insurance denial rates routinely 20%, data show

[OhioChick]

Updated 14h 44m ago

Amanda Hite says she felt "really healthy" when she applied recently for health insurance. But Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield denied her, because she had seen a chiropractor a few months earlier for a sore back and later had visited an emergency room because of back pain.

"I was surprised and let down," said Hite, 34, of Lexington, Ky., who didn't think her periodic back pain would be enough to keep her from buying health insurance.

Hite's case isn't unusual. Many of the plans offered by Anthem Blue Cross in Kentucky reject about one in five applicants, according to data provided by insurers to the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Rival insurers in the state have even higher denial rates: Humana rejects 26% to 39% of applications in Kentucky, while UnitedHealthcare denies 38% to 43%.

Citing its own 2009 study, America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, says 87% of people who apply nationally for individual coverage are offered a policy. That figure, however, includes people who are turned down for one policy but offered another that may cost more or have fewer benefits.

More: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/story/2011-09-09/health-insurance-denial-rates-kaiser-health-news/50362322/1

[MineralMan]

1. Try it in your 50s. The denial rate is far higher as you grow older.

This is completely unacceptable. The only solution is single-payer, single-pool tax-funded health care.

[Romulox]

2. Imagine Amanda's problems when she becomes required by law to buy a product

and no company is willing to sell it to her...

[Ilsa]

3. Fine. Then let her buy into Medicare. nt

[fasttense]

4. Oh the health care corporation have that all figured out too.

See, right now, my health care insurance corporation is required to allow me to put my 2 healthy, young, fit, 20 something children on my plan. And they do for $12,000 each. That's $24,000 a year for both of them. So, now that corporation will offer you a plan that is just so ridiculously expensive that you are will to pay the fine for not having health insurance.