Healing Our System: Rejected for Ridiculous Reasons
By: Patricia Barry and Barbara Basler Source: AARP Bulletin Today Date Posted: March 2007
Jerry Kelly, 59, a Redwood City, Calif., accountant and his wife, Brenda, 57, were stunned after being rejected recently for private health insurance: “We were turned down for ridiculous reasons, including the fact that I take 10 milligrams of Lipitor every day,” he says.
Lipitor, for lowering cholesterol, is one of the most common prescription drugs sold in the United States, and Kelly says it is the only medication he takes regularly.
“Last October my wife and I had complete physicals and were told we were in excellent health,” he says. “Nothing [the insurer] listed in their rejection added up to any real health problems.”
Kelly left a large accounting firm months ago to open his own CPA office. He planned to buy individual health insurance to replace the employee coverage he and his wife will lose this month. He knew private insurance would cost a lot more but was prepared to pay $464 a month for a policy for the two of them with a $5,000 deductible.
He won’t have that chance now.
Kelly says his insurance agent told him he could fight the rejection but cautioned that “even if I won, the company would more than double our premiums to $1,100 [with a] $5,000 deductible.”
Under California law, Kelly may apply for federal COBRA insurance to tide him over while he establishes himself at a new job—but that costs $1,300 a month for a $5,000 deductible. “My wife and I exercise, eat right, we’re in good shape for people our age,” Kelly insists. “I never figured getting health insurance would be a problem. And I never, ever imagined I’d be without it.”
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