What Real Attorneys General Eat For Breakfast
(Texas • )
For at least the past 18 months or so, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has stepped up his PR campaign, sending out a raft of press releases at the rate of probably one every three days.
Investigators for his office shut down a weight-loss scheme, or a phony police charity, or collect child-support money from a group of scofflaws. He is very fond of tracking down and arresting medical clinic operators who’ve discovered how to game the Medicaid system.
And who could argue with any of that?
But in a land where the citizenry is required at every turn to pay money for a variety of insurance (car, truck, home, health, life), and yet has damn little protection (none, basically) against this powerful industry, where is Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott when Texans need to be shielded from long-running institutional fraud? Nowhere to be seen.
Here is how a real attorney general justifies his paycheck:
New York’s attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, has ordered an overhaul of the databases the industry uses to determine how much of a medical bill is paid when a patient uses an out-of-network doctor.A statement from Mr. Cuomo’s office said the industry had engaged in “a scheme to defraud consumers” by systematically underpaying the nation’s patients by hundreds of millions of dollars over the last decade.
The move, to be announced Tuesday, is part of a settlement with the insurance giant UnitedHealth Group, which operates the industry databases. It results from a yearlong investigation by Mr. Cuomo’s office that concluded the data had understated the true market rates of medical care by up to 28 percent.
The settlement will have a nationwide impact because UnitedHealth, the biggest health insurer in New York, operates the databases used by the entire industry, through its Ingenix business unit. The deal calls for creation of a new independent database, to be run by a university that is still to be selected.
I sure hope Texans get in on this deal, because Lord knows we’ve been screwed for years through the same rigged health insurance industry database. If we do wind up benefiting from Cuomo’s investigation, I fully expect a press release from Abbott’s office taking credit, but then I’m just cynical that way.
In fairness, I saw yesterday that Abbott’s office took on Dell Inc. over some seamy practices by its financial services arm. That’s a step in the right direction. Next, how about investigating possible collusion between home insurers, mortgage lenders and insurance adjusters in low-balling and slowing down payments for damages Texans suffered during Hurricane Ike? Or investigating practices by some of the nation’s largest home insurers to pull out of entire Texas regions, while pushing major rate increases on their remaining Texas customers without demonstrated justification? Or investigating auto insurers’ practice of tying rates to customers’ credit scores, which have no bearing whatsoever on their driving record?
If Abbott would show a willingness to take on the big boys, then I think a whole lot more of us would be willing to support him in his quest for whatever future office has prompted his prolific public relations effort.
→ B.Dunn, Jan 13, 2009, 04 43 am
HELLO BOB,
Welcome back! Since your back I’m back. I have some lily plants for you that have survived my care. The cherry trees are about about 5” tall and still have leaves.
— Marsha Rovai Jan 14, 10:59 am #
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Just a quick formatting note: in the middle column of this page, talking about Abbott, the text would have been more readable if you had chosen a ragged right margin format. When you select a justified margin format, it causes awkward spacing and makes the text VERY hard to read. Thanks!
— Carol Wyatt Jan 14, 11:43 am #
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