New internal documents reveal that one of the country's largest insurance companies, Cigna, has been rejecting patients’ insurance claims without even opening them.
The company has built a system that allows its doctors to instantly reject a claim on medical grounds without opening the patient file, leaving people with unexpected bills.
Over a period of two months last year, Cigna doctors denied over 300,000 requests for payments using this method, spending an average of 1.2 seconds on each case, the documents show. The company has reported it covers or administers health care plans for 18 million people.
In our current system, insurance companies depend on denying coverage to make millions in profit for their shareholders. It’s disgusting, and the cost is people's lives.
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The health care you receive should be decided between you, your doctors, and your nurses — not by private insurance companies. This outrageous situation with Cigna wouldn’t even be possible if we had a Medicare for All system in the US.
Under Medicare for All, there would be no such thing as claims denials. We would eliminate the greedy, for-profit health insurance industry that serves as a needless middleman and continuously prioritizes profits over people’s lives.
Tighter regulations on Cigna to try and change its behaviors won’t solve this crisis. The solution is to fundamentally reform our health care system -- by passing Medicare for All -- so that private corporations aren’t the ones making decisions about the care we receive.
And we know that in order to advance this fight for health care justice, we need to take the influence of the corporate health care industry head on. Part of that fight is our Patients Over Profits pledge, which calls on politicians to reject campaign contributions from the corporate health care industry.
We’re grateful to be in this movement for health care justice alongside you and look forward to working with you.
Hope to see you tomorrow,
Jasmine Ruddy
Organizer
Nurses’ Campaign to Win Medicare for All
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