From The Institute for Public Accuracy
www.accuracy.org
More than one out of every five requests for medical claims for insured patients, even when recommended by a patient's physician, are rejected by California's largest private insurers, amounting to very real death panels in practice daily in the nation's biggest state, according to data released Wednesday by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.
Claims denial rates by leading California insurers, first six months of 2009:
* PacifiCare -- 39.6 percent
* Cigna -- 32.7 percent
* HealthNet -- 30 percent
* Kaiser Permanente -- 28.3 percent
* Blue Cross -- 27.9 percent
* Aetna -- 6.4 percent