The common man got a win yesterday in California. As the L.A. Times reports, Health Net has agreed to pay as much as $14 million to settle lawsuits in regards to their practice of "rescission". This is where coverage of a patient is dropped after they submit substantial medical bills. A previous trial had revealed that Health Net paid bonuses to an employee based in part on how many rescissions she carried out. Almost 1,600 rescissions helped Health Net save $35.5 million over several years. This really is a disgusting practice, one that state regulators have really been trying to change. How the hell did the people working for these companies sleep at night? On a side note, there wasn't a long and expensive drawn out trial for this case. The average payment is expected to be $7,836 for the 800 former policyholders whose coverage was dropped. The law firm received a nice little payday of $2.1 million. How is that fair? Show me how many hours they worked on this case to justify that billing? Can you imagine if doctors were paid this much? Why doesn't the state regulators look into that process?
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