In this February article cited below, a letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield to physicians tells them that a copy of insurance applications will be forwarded to physicians and that any information of medical history not disclosed and known to the physician must be sent to the insurance company by the physician
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-fi-bluecross12feb12,
1,3541511.story?ctrack=3&cset=true (copy lines separately into your search line for full cite location)
As the health services industry successfully turns people on one another with the logic of why should I pay for your poor health, this policy will also be acceptable to the ever-compromising cost-conscious consumer. While we'll all have to play this game for a period of time, I wonder whether HIV/Aids testing will experience a decline as citizens put off testing until they REALLY suspect they have HIV/Aids... I wonder whether people will REALLY continue to have complete bloodwork done checking for overall conditions...I wonder whether those on anti-depressants are ready to pay more for health insurance because of their mental states...I wonder.
Transparency, honesty, cost control, full information, cost control, most effective health treatments, cost control...I wonder whether you will honestly disclose that your father, brother, sister, mother had cancer, had a heart attack, has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or high anxiety.
And physicians who will be obliged to complete this piece of information for health insurers, I wonder whether they will stop defensive medicine tactics since every piece of information in your life as a health services consumer will be PENALIZED.
Will you tell the insurance company you ride a motorcycle or travel to places with high incidence of diseases less common in the US? Will every person in NYC confess that they too breathed the air of 9/11? How 'bout those who work in environmental clean up? Or those prescribed medicines that caused illness? Or those who contracted infections in hospitals when they dared to seek treatment?
Insurance companies want to gouge consumers for the basic fact that we ALL have a medical history and that such a history is complex. It is our fault...we accepted that turning on one another, isolating the less firm from the more firm, penalizing the mentally ill, and clicking our tongues at the obese was a good way of explaining why OUR health insurance should be cheaper.
Did your grandmother have diabetes, I can't remember? Hmmm... Have any of your relatives died at all? Hmmm...Oh but you say it was a tragic accident? Really? Was your dear departed riding a motorcycle? A bicycle against traffic? Climbing a ladder? Hmmmm.....You've been a model of health? Yet you've seen a doctor in your life...Hmmm
And when you get sick or disqualified or are bounced for less than full information, will you seek a return of premiums paid or will those be lost too? Causing you stress you say...stress? Anxiety? Mental instability? Weakness? Hmmm....
