that we're sitting here today hearing these horror stories of patients who have been caught up ,,,,n inefficient, @@arbrb time every day watching young patients with no hair, with i.v.s in their arms or in their chest going into a port, walking

around and taking care of each other much better than our health care industry takes care of patients in their time of need. and it's a slander on the names of the health care professionals who do everything they can to keep patients like your brother, like my little brother, alive when we don't give them the support that they need after they have invested their hard-earned dollars by paying premiums to a health care insurance company who turns their back on the patient in their hour of need. and that's why i'm a strong supporter of the public health insurance option. and i'm proud that my colleagues on this committee, chris murphy and peter welsh, have joined me in introducing the choices bill to give health insurance patients a public health insurance option with no discrimination so we don't have to go through these nightmares anymore. with that, i yield back. >> thank you. that concludes the opening statements of all members.

one of our witnesses had to step out just for a moment. ,,t's stand in recess the hearing will come back to order. as i stated before we had the brief recess, that concludes the opening statements by members of the subcommittee. i would like to call upon our first panel of witnesses. our first panel we have robin beaton, who is a policyholder from walkahatchee, texas. miss peggy raddatz from illinois. and miss wittney horton from los angeles, california. welcome all of you. thank you for coming. it's the policy of the subcommittee to take all testimony under oath. please be advised that you have a right under the rules of the

house to be advised by counsel during your testimony. do you wish to be represent the by counsel during your testimony? you're all shaking your heads no? so -- okay. i'm going to ask you to please rise and raise your right hand to take the oath. miss beaton, if you want to sit there, that's okay. do you swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the matter pending before this committee? let the record reflect the witnesses replied in the affirmative. they are now under oath. we will hear a five-minute opening statement from each of you. miss beaton, would you like to start first with an opening? you'd like to be last? miss horton, would you mind being first? would you pull that mike forward and turn on the green button there. it doesn't pick up as well as it

should. >> can you hear me now? >> we can hear you. thank you. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. i want to start by thanking the committee for this opportunity to testify this morning. i am very pleased that congress has decided to take a close look at recision, so that it can understand just how damaging this practice has been to so many people across the country. when blue cross canceled my coverage, i had no idea what recision meant. but now after my life has been turned upside down for the past four years, i've come to understand what a despicable practice it is. insurance companies require you to fill out an application that is deliberately confusing. and they don't do anything to make sure you understood the questions, or that you supplied all the information they need to decide whether they want to insure you or not. they just accept you, and accept your premium checks. it's after you see a doctor that everything changes. when your doctors file claims, the insurance company starts looking for reasons not to pay them. they dig through your medical records and compare what they find to be information you put down on the application. it's called post-claims

underwriting. and in california where i live, it's illegal. but insurers ignore the law and when they find a discrepancy or omission, they rescind the policy and refuse to pay any of your medical bills. even for routine treatment or treatment they previously authorized. blue cross's decision to rescind my insurance was devastating to my husband and me. and i consider myself one of the lucky ones. devestating to my husband and me and i consider myself lucky. as the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against blue kraut i represent 6,000 californians who were stripped of their insurance by blue cross. you can't imagine how horrifying some of those stories are. blue cross rescinded some of these people after they had undergone open-heart surgery or were receiving chemotherapy for cancer. some of these people were left with hundreds of thousands of dollars. we were all left to fend for ourselves after blue crosswalked away from its promise to provide health insurance. i sought insurance from blue

cross this 2005 because my parents raised me to believe that health insurance was an absolute necessity that should never be taken for granted. i work in the film industry in los angeles, california where employment is generally temporary and done on a freelance basis. so for me and others snt industry, individual coverage is a necessity. i had just left a temporary staffing agency for sony pictures to go to work on a specific movie. when i made the move i had to give up the stability of my group health care than mr. to i sought out individual coverage. when i applied i wanted to make sure i did everything appropriately. i filled out the application to the best of my ability even though it was long and confusing and wrote down everything i could remember, including hypothyroidism and listed the information for my treating doctor and turned the application into my insurance

broker. she said everything looked good and sent it in to blue cross and they accepted my application. i was 27 at the time. two months later i went to my en endokron meteorologist and i got a letter back saying they wanted all of my medical records from my gynecologist. i consented. a couple months later in june of '05 i got a letter from blau cause saying that they were rescinding my policy because i didn't mention a certain medication i was taking. my doctor had prescribed this hoping it might help me lose without but it did not 'i stopped taking medication when i saw it did not work for me. in its rescission letter they said they said they would never have accept med if they had known that i had polycystic

ovaries. i later learned that it is a diagnosis of exclusion and very difficult to prove. doctors often proceed on suspicions of a person having it without actually having proven it. this is what happened in my case, my doctor suspected i might have this. wrote it down and told me she was previbing this for weight management. i never knew what she wrote down in her notes because she never told me. after i was rescinded two doctors wrote letters telling them this but they didn't care the they just wrote back and said they were upholding their decision to rescind. after this, i showed my application to my sister and her husband, both radiologists. and they said this tripped people up. i'm a college graduate, no dummy and i still couldn't make sense

of blue cross's tricky application. the worst part is i've been unable to get insurance anywhere else. i applied for individual insurance through blue shield but on the application they ask if the applicant had ever had insurance rescinded when they learned i had they informed me they would not accept me. every insurance company asked if you've had health care rescinded. for the rest of my life i can't get individual coverage because of blue cross. as someone that works on in this industry this say big deal. i've had to take jobs i don't want and put my career goals on hold to insure i can find health insurance. 56 my husband and i got married i was able to get coverage through his company's group health care plan. if he ever loses his job or i don't have employment with a company that offers group health insurance i might have to go without. as i mentioned before i consider myself one of the lucky ones.

i don't have large outstanding medical bills and i'm relatively healthy. i was able to pay my doctors back for the amounts blue cross refused to pay. many people rescinded are far less fortunate and as the lead plaintiff against blue cross i feel an obligation to speak for them as well. what blue cross did was wrong and they must not be permitted to get away with it. americans desperately need health care reform. as my experience shows, owning an insurance policy doesn't mean access to health care. if insurance companies are not prohibited from doing this, the policies are not worth the paper they are printed on. insurance companies are making record profits in collecting premiums in exchange for the prom promise that they will be there for people when they need them. make them keep that promise. thank you. >> thank you. thank you for being here. would you like to give you

opening statement? >> thank you very much, mr. chairman and to all the members of committee for all your kind words and your wonderful statements. my name is peggy redittz and i'm testifying on behalf of my brother. my brother was a business owner of a restaurant that he ran with his wife, marie. he purchased a health insurance policy from fortus insurance company in august of 2003. on the application, he indicated he had kidney stones and smoked. he listed all physicians who had treated him. it will health application was accepted and is h his coverage began in august of 2003. a year later, my brother found himself inexplainbly losing a large amount of weight. his wife, marie, urged him to see a doctor.

in september of 2004, my 59-year-old brother at the time was diagnosed with stage four n n nonhodgkin's lymphoma. he started treatment. due to the aggressive cancer he had, he was given six more rounds of chemo by january of 2005. he suffered a lot during the period of time and was often unable to work. he was referred to a specialist in stem cell transplantation and for high dose chemotherapy. he began this for purposes of preparing him for stem cell implant. these treatments were long and

difficult in nature. in the middle of the chemo treatments he received a phone call and letter from the insurance company stating his insurance was cancelled. it was rescinded all the way back to the effective date of august 7, 2004, which was before his diagnosis for cancer. this meant none of his cancer treatments would be covered at all. most importantly, he would not be able to receive the stem cell transplant needed to save his life. my brother only had a very small window of time in which to have the stem cell transplant. he needed to be scheduled within the next three to four weeks or he wouldn't be able to have the transplant at all and his life would be ended very shortly.

my brother was told he was cancelled during what they called a routine review, during which they claimed to discover a material failure to disclose as they stateded in their letter. apparently, in 2000 his treating doctor had done a ct season which showed a small aneurysm and some insignificant gallstones. my brother was never told of either one of these conditions nor was he ever treated for them nor did he ever report any symptoms for them either. after months of preparation, the stem cell transplant could not be scheduleded. my brother's hope for being a cancer survivor was dashed. his prognosis was only a matter of months without the procedure. by this time, he could no longer

work and ultimately, had to sell ,,,, estaurant because of this. without insurance. my brother was accused by fortis insurance company of falsely stating his health insurance

history, despite the fact that he had no knowledge of ever having gallstones or aneurysms. luckily, i'm an attorney and i was able to aggressively become involved in solving this life-threatening situation. i got on the phone and literally made dozens of phone calls day after day after day, i put my personal work aside and worked on this literally round-the-clock, calling people. i finally was told to contact the attorney general's office and received immediate and daily assistance from the illinois attorney general's office and from the dr. walledman, the medical director of their health bureau. i can't thank them enough for their daily assistance and support of myself and my brother through this difficult time. during their investigation, they located the doctor who ordered the ct scan.

he was not only retired, he was on a fishing trip at the time. and through their unbelievable resol resolve, they were able to get ahold of him -- he recalled my brother and his treatment of my brother but had no recollection of ever disclosing the information to my brother or treating him for gallstones or for a small aneurysm. after two appeals by the illinois attorney general's office, the insurance company finally overturned their original decision to rescind my brother's coverage and he was reinstated without lapse. this is after weeks of constant phone calls between myself and the attorney general's office and we were literally scrambling hour by hour to get this accomplished so that my brother

wouldn't lose his three to four week window of opportunity that he had prepared for and lose his opportunity to have the procedure. what the fortis insurance company did was unethical. to deny a dying person necessary medical treatment based upon medical conditions a patient never had knowledge of, never complained about or never been treated for, is cruel. it is the help of our family that this information will benefit other patients who are in need of life-saving medical treatments and who do not have the knowledge or means necessary to fight against the health insurance companies. it is further our desire to expose these practices of fortis insurance company so others do not have to suffer as victims as my brother did. thank you very much, mr.

chairman and thank you, so much members of the committee for all your effort into thank you. >> mrs. baiten. i'm rob been baiten i'm 59 years old and i was a registered nurse for 30 years. i had insurance and i was in good health. i retired from nursing and started my own small business. obtained a personal individual policy from blue cross and blue shield in december of 2007. in may of 2008, i went to a dermatologist for acne, pimples and a word was written on my chart which was considered to mean precancerious.

in june i was diagnosed with a aggressive form of breast cancer. i needed a double mastectomy immediately. and blue cross and blue shield precertified me for the surgery and for a hospital stay. the friday before i was to have my double mastectomy, blue cross and blue shield called me by telephone and told me that my chart was red flagged. what does that mean i said? they said that due to the dermatologists report and that was what red flaggeded my chart in the beginning, that i would not be able to have my surgery on monday and they launch aid five-year medical investigate into my medical history. i had to give them -- i had to give them every pharmacy, every

doctor, every hospital and they threatened me if i left anything out it would be really bad so i really tried everything in the world i could to list every single doctor ever where i where i'd ever been. i immediately got in touch with a dermatologist. he immediately called blue cross and blue shield and he begged them. he said, this is a misunderstanding. he said this is not precancerous. all she has is acne. please don't hold up cancer surgery for this, he begged them. he was the nicest man. anyway, i was frantic. i did not know what to do. i didn't know how to pay for my surgery. the hospital wanted a $30,000 deposit and i was by myself and i didn't have that kind of money. i turned to the only person i had to turn to and that was joe barton, my congressman. the next day i got a letter cancelling my insurance

rescinding it to the first day they had covered me. can you imagine having to walk around with cancer growing in your body with no insurance? it's the most terrible thing in the world to not have anybody to turn to or any anywhere to go. i can't say how bad it was. the sad thing is that blue cross blue shield took my high premiums the very first time i ever had a claim. the very first time and was suspected of cancer. they took action against me, searching high and low. they turned over every single thing they could in my medical history to pull out anything that would cause any suspicion on me. so they didn't have to pay for my cancer. a nurse who attends my church works fulltime for blue cross and blue shield.

she looked through medical records searching for reasons to cancel people. she came to me and she said, i feel so bad. i can't tell you how sorry i am this has happened to you. blue cross and blue shield has control over life and over death. people have to be able to count on what they have paid for count on having insurance. blue cross and blue shield will do anything to get out of paying for cancer, anything. sad fact is that anyone with a catastrophic illness what is not a part of a group, who has an individual policy stands a really high chance of getting cancelled. left out in the cold with no insurance. i go to cancer support group every week f. four girls in my cancer support group have had their health

insurance cancelled and two have had to declare bankruptcy because of cancer. it's very difficult for me to speak out. my insurance could be cancelled again 'i live in fear every day of my insurance company. i looked everywhere for help. no one found anything to help me until joe barton, after working for a really long time, every day they worked hard. i had given up hope. i didn't have any hope left but they never gave up. they did everything they could to help me and got my insurance reinstated. after being diagnosed in june, 2008 with aggressive breast cancer, i was placed back on a list to get a mastectomy and i finally had the surgery in october 2nd, 2008. my tumor grew from 2 to 3 centimeters all the way to 7.

i had to have all my lymph nodes removed in my arm, everything. delaying cancer treatment it only worsens the condition, costing more to treat and treatment is much more intensive. also, the outcome is not as good. i go to chemotherapy every three weeksnd will have to go for the next year. cancer is expensive and no one wants to pay for cancer. i pray no one has to go through the sheer agony that i have had to endure for one year. i did not deserve to have my insurance cancelled. blue cross and blue shield set out to get rid of me. they searched high and low until they found enough to cancel me and they did. i owe my life to joe barton and i pray that you will listen to my story and help people like me who are powerless against the big insurance companies. today, when i met mr. barton this was the very first time i

met him and he helped me not even knowing me just because he's a good man. i went to the county hospital. everywhere looking for help. and you just get on waiting lists and when you get on waiting lists your cancer grows. i thank you for listening and, please, do something about it because i couldn't even tell you the people i know that have been through this. it's horrible thing to go through. thank you so much. >> thank you. you may want to turn off your mic for now. we'll turn forrer questions. i'll begin and we'll go for five minutes on questions and probably go a round or two. for the three panelists i'd like your thoughts on information the committee gathered about the economics of rescissions for insurance companies. the three ceos testify that they use rescission to rule out fraud by those that applied for coverage but at the same time we find these companies have

reported saveringings in an estimated $300 million in result of rescissions from 2003 to 2007, not including all their subsidiaries and files. this doesn't include the savings gained by avoiding future medical costs of rescinded policy holders. let me ask each of you. do you believe the insurance companies use rescission as a fraud prevention tool or a cost-saving instrument that will help them boost their corporate profits. miss horton? >> i think it's all about the money. >> ms. raditz. >> absolutely about the money. >> ms. baiten. >> absolutely. until you try to use it they just keep taking your money. >> as i listened to your testimony, ms. baiten, you're an rn and you were an attorney and you seem like you had access to people who could help you on this. what happens in your groups and

people you talk to. what happens to people that don't have those support mechanisms in the family. ms. horton? >> they fall through the cracks. there's nothing -- even having radiologyists in my family i didn't have the opportunity to consult them before filling out the application. they live across the country with children and work all the time. i don't know what those people would do. >> ms. raditz? >> as i stated in my testimony, my brother was very fortunate because of the fact that i have education and i know lots of people. and even all the attorneys that i know, and judges who i went to ask for help, did not know what to do in a situation other than go through the court system. unfortunately, when you have cancer or you're in a position where your life is shortened to a matter of months, you can't go through the court system. you don't have the time to do

that. what do people do? many, many people throughout the united states do nothing because they don't have the ways or the means or the knowledge to take the steps necessary. they don't know all the -- i know hundreds of attorneys i've been practicing a lengthy period of time. they don't know all those people i know. what do they do? they get the letter and they don't get the treatment that they need, and many of these people die. they think that's the way it's supposed to be. because they just don't know what to do. and i believe on nehonestly, th they depend on the lack of knowledge and lack of federal laws in place and that's one of the ways that they encourage their profits. >> plas baiten, you want to add anything? >> i was going to say that a lot of people in my cancer group, they get letters