Insurance company reportedly sought to drop all HIV-positive customers.

Paul Thornton And Jon Healey wrote on the "Opinion LA" blog at the Los Angeles Times (3/17) that health insurers' "abusive cherry-picking practices keep giving lawmakers incentives to vote for the healthcare reform bill." As evidence, they point to the Reuters report below of "the case of Jerome Mitchell, a young South Carolinian who signed up for an insurance policy at age 17 but was later diagnosed with HIV. His insurer, Fortis -- now known as Assurant -- summarily canceled his policy after the HIV diagnosis." As the result of a lawsuit, it was disclosed that "Fortis had a company policy of targeting policyholders with HIV. A computer program and algorithm targeted every policyholder recently diagnosed with HIV for an automatic fraud investigation."
Reuters (3/18, Waas) reports that as a result of Mitchell's suit, a jury ordered the company to pay him $14 million, a decision that was mostly upheld by the South Carolina Supreme Court which limited the payment to $10 million. The suit reportedly revealed a company policy of investigating every policyholder with HIV for fraud in an effort to remove them from the roles. Reuters reports that the practice of rescission of policies is frequently done simply to save the company money and often has no valid support though it also says that no other insurance companies are known to have targeted HIV-positive policyholders.