The legal basis for rescission is that when you sign an insurance application, you are warranting that the information on the application is true; if it turns out not to be true, the insurer can get out of your insurance contract. It's particularly nasty in practice because the insurer does not immediately investigate your application to determine if it is accurate before selling you the policy (that would be impractically expensive); instead, the insurer waits - years, in many cases - until you actually need expensive health care, and then does the investigation, which at that point is worth it because of the payments the insurer could potentially avoid. Also, you can lose your coverage for innocent mistakes, which are easy to make since the application form asks you if you have ever seen a doctor for any one of a long list of medical conditions that you are certain not to recognize or understand. (In a Congressional hearing, the CEO of a health insurer admitted that he did not know what several of the conditions listed on his company's application were.)
I'm not at all certain how this is justifiable or defensible, but there are those who seriously defend America's health care "system" as the system we should have. The people making this argument no doubt have health insurance and don't have to worry about the issues so many millions of Americans do. That ALL Americans aren't guaranteed access to quality, affordable health care is a travesty. That those who do have coverage may have to face the reality of rescission should make it crystal clear that our health care "system" is not at all about health care. It's about profit. Period.
That one could conceivably lose or be denied coverage due to innocent mistakes or other reasons ("pre-existing conditions"), in some cases after years of paying premiums, seems unconscionable. That there are those who defend this state of affairs as quality health care is indefensible. We live in the most powerful economy in the world...and we cannot see our way clear to guaranteeing all Americans quality, affordable health care? Yet we seem willing to spare no expense to wage two simultaneous wars.
I may be spitting into the wind here, of course, The longer we go without health care reform, the more likely it becomes that the industry will be able to buy enough Congressmen to maintain the status quo and with it their bottom line. And isn't that what it's really all about?
WE DESERVE BETTER.
