Bad Faith

Two reasons it was a GREAT IDEA to do healthcare reform that centered the greedy, profit-driven interests of the public menace known as insurance companies:

1. Reuters:

One after another, shortly after a diagnosis of breast cancer, each of the women learned that her health insurance had been canceled. ... The women all paid their premiums on time. Before they fell ill, none had any problems with their insurance. Initially, they believed their policies had been canceled by mistake.

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, according to government regulators and investigators.

Once the women were singled out, they say, the insurer then canceled their policies based on either erroneous or flimsy information.

Q: How do WellPoint's executives sleep at night? A: Soundly, on huge piles of cash.

2. CNN:

According to Harvard Medical School researchers, 11 large companies that offer life, disability, or health insurance owned about $1.9 billion in stock in the five largest fast-food companies as of June 2009.

The fast-food companies included McDonald's, Burger King, and Yum! Brands (the parent company of KFC and Taco Bell). Companies from both North America and Europe were among the insurers, including the U.S.-based Massachusetts Mutual, Northwestern Mutual, and Prudential Financial.

…"The insurance industry cares about making money, and it doesn't really care how," says the senior author of the study, J. Wesley Boyd, M.D., an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, in Boston. "They will invest in products that contribute to significant morbidity and mortality if doing so is going to make money."

Charge fat people more for their policies. Leave them with less money in a country where a salad costs more than a Big Mac. Make profits on increased premiums and collect dividends on fast food investments.

It's the American Dream.

[H/T to Elle and Shaker koach, respectively.]