By Louise Radnofsky
Patient advocacy groups are using antidiscrimination provisions in the health-care law as the basis of a complaint against insurers they say are trying to avoid covering consumers with HIV and AIDS, in one of the first cases of its kind.
The National Health Law Program and the AIDS Institute submitted a complaint to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights Thursday morning accusing four health insurers selling individual plans in Florida of discriminating against consumers with HIV in the way they designed their insurance benefits. The complaint names Coventry Health Care Inc., a unit of Aetna Inc., Cigna Corp., Humana Inc. and Preferred Medical, a plan based in Coral Gables, Fla.
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Wayne Turner, a staff attorney for the National Health Law Program, said the complaint appeared to be the first one that drew on the antidiscrimination provision to go after an insurance plan’s benefit design. Read the full article here. »
