Specifically, the TMA recommends:
1. Prohibiting insurers from rescinding coverage retroactively by citing a mistake the policyholder made when filling out insurance applications.
2. Banning exclusions for pre-existing conditions in an insurance policy.
3. Mandating that insurers provide "uniform, meaningful, easy-to-understand and actionable" information about their products.
4. Requiring insurers to report what percentage of premiums goes to direct patient care, as opposed to administration and profit.
"On the list of things that need to be fixed are the tactics health insurers use to avoid paying our patients’ health care costs," said TMA President William H. Fleming III, MD. "It’s time Congress holds health insurers accountable for the promises they make to the patients who pay ever-increasing premiums for less and less coverage."
Read the Texas Medical Association’s release on health reform.
