Health Care: California's Real Death Panels Insurers Deny 21% of Claims

This is a press release from the Nurses Association, sent out on PRNewswire and redistributed by Reuters. In other words, widely available. Wonder if Fox and CNN picked up on these death panels.

PacifiCare's Denials 40%, Cigna's 33% in First Half of 2009

OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- More than one 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 today by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.

CNA/NNOC researchers analyzed data reported by the insurers to the California Department of Managed Care. From 2002 through June 30, 2009, the six largest insurers operating in California rejected 31.2 million claims for care - 21 percent of all claims.

The rest of the story: California's Real Death Panels