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Schwarzenegger Vetoes Bill Restricting Insurers' Ability To Cancel Policies Of Sick Patients
By Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times - October 12, 2009
Sacramento - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a measure that would have restricted the ability of insurance companies to cancel the policies of sick patients and signed into law a bill honoring Harvey Milk as he rushed to act on 704 bills before their midnight signing deadline Sunday.
The governor vetoed 229 of the bills, but did not carry through on his threat to reject hundreds more as punishment for legislative leaders' failure to reach a bipartisan deal on upgrading the state's water system. Schwarzenegger said sufficient progress had been made in the water talks to move the bills off his desk.
The health insurance bill, AB 2 by Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate), addressed a practice known as rescission, a practice The Times has reported extensively about. It can involve insurance companies removing patients with serious, costly illnesses from their rolls retroactively.
Congressional investigators uncovered cases in which insurance officials were rewarded by their companies for finding excuses -- such as a form being filled out incompletely during enrollment -- to take policies away from some of the sickest patients.
Schwarzenegger said he supports protecting such patients but state regulators have implemented reforms that are doing so, significantly decreasing the number of rescissions since 2005. (See JustHealth Analysis Above)
"The market has changed -- and it is because of my Administration’s strong action in this area," he wrote in his veto message. He also criticized provisions of the bill that he said benefited "trial lawyers rather than consumers."
Full Article: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/10/schwarzenegger-bill.html
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