Recently my employer decided to explore other options for health insurance for its employees. To do this, every employee had to complete an insurance application.
Now, this application wasn’t short and sweet. In fact, it was the same type of application that one has to complete when signing up for an already established insurer of a company. I was so annoyed by the prospect of having to fill out my entire health history, and that of each family member, just for a quote, that I refused to complete the 2nd part of the application where I had to supply dates and the current status of certain items.
Well, that got thrown back in my face. Not by my employer, but by the company from which the group insurance quote was being sought. They told my employer that if I refused to complete the application, the quote they would give would be the highest and not based on a group rate. In other words, Dee’s application was holding up the process.
How bogus!
I was faced, then, with a dilemma: Continue to refuse to supply the information and thereby prevent a possible lower quote from an insurance company for the rest of my colleagues or supply the information (supposedly protected by HIPAA) and now let a company that won’t necessarily be our new insurance company have all my sensitive information?
Begrudgingly, I chose the latter of the two options.
This is just another example of how our health care system controls everything out our health care decisions. Citizens of the U.S. are definitely in a trap – and thus the large numbers of them going without insurance, mostly not by choice.
Something’s gotta change.
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 
What an unfortunate situation for you. And even more unfortunate for all of us is the non-interest in a single-payer, non-profit system. Obama doesn’t have the courage to take on the Insurance biggies, apparently (and likewise the Defense Industry). Go green!
Information on ALL eligible employees
Unfortunately many employees and employers wrongly accuse the insurance companies of being the bad guys here. The reason that the insurance companies are asking for this information now is because of the politcal mess and laws that state and federal lawmakers have imposed on the insurance companies. In order for the insurance carrier to properly rate a group financially they must look at the information for ALL ELIGBLE employees. An elible employee is any employee who meets the employers requirements irregardless of if they have coverage elsewhere. Under continuity of coverage laws if someone waives their right to coverage under their employers group plan because they have coverage under their spouses plan they still have the right to join their employers group insurance plan if their spouse loses coverage, therefore the carrier has to rate for potential risk. Many people are wrongly accusing the insurance carriers of responsiblity for this and they need to look at the laws that were passed that prompted this.
Re: Information on ALL eligible employees
I forgot to add that I feel that all private insurance companies need to be phased out. I agree with papananook in that we need single payer, non-profit/socialized health care system where no one goes without because they cannot afford coverage. Equal access for ALL. It’s a *right*, not a privelege to have health care.