>>5917117 lb.

>Can we sue the Health Insurance companies collectively, as a class?

to the anons that wrote this post.

I don't know the answer to you question about bringing class actions against them, but I can confirm that insurance underwriters, no matter what kinda policies they may or may not offer (health, auto, home, medical, etc…), do and spend all they can in ordinary times to mitigate the pain on their books when it's time to pay on policy for the customer.

I realized this during Katrina aftermath, we were lucky enough to have taken a flood policy on the house. but I would say we were 1 out of every 9 or 10 homes.

people believed insurance reps when they were told you don't need flood, you are not in flood zone, hurricane coverage will take of those sorts of events. then the storm comes and homeowners are made virtually indigent overnight in need of a hotel a shower and some clean clothes. people thought to got to insurance but that wasn't the place to look.

it was neighbors, charities, and when the Marines and natl guard were able to get down here (delayed due to obstructed roads) the mil. even the federal govt did more to help in time of need than insurance did.

when people finally got situated short term to figure it out and assess going forward, they'd meet their agents/assessors and find out that the policy had an out for the company to withhold payment. "too bad you should have had a flood policy". "But you said Hurricane was enough that I didn't need flood bc I wasn't in a flood zone!".

that was to customers f2f. amongst themselves the insurance cos. would collude (yes I am using term correctly here honest) on matters by opening books to one another and cross referring favorable assessors.

Under fed law insurance is exempt from antitrust law. they can be as opaque as they like regarding practices, and they can talk amongst themselves and who could know if sufficiently opaque in practice?!

.I mention all of this because Katrina taught me a insurance has the same structure of incentives for firm behavior.

whether they offer medical home or auto, in normal times your premiums are pooled and invested to provide them with the skim earned.

each state is going to differ on matter of insurance regulation: your state regulator will either be on the take or not yet on the take.

Banks are only visibly worse actors. insurance underwriters are very similar but keep a lower profile.

p.s not knocking idea of insurance as preparing for a rainy day, it's the intermediary model as implemented. and don't look in their direction for improvement or solutions.

they created the problems in implementing regulatory capture. the solutions work when then current purveyors go under.