Are health insurance companies generally fair and honest when they reject claims from policyholders? This question seems central to the current health care debate, but the answers aren't readily available. In the first story in an ongoing series, "Health Insurance Denials Remain a Mystery," staff reporter Danielle Ivory revealed that health insurance companies collect and analyze data on how and why insurance claims are denied, but the companies are not required to provide this data to any state or federal agency. As a result, it's difficult for regulators, legislators, journalists, or the public to identify patterns of denial or disparities in coverage. The second piece, "Rape Victims Choice: Risk AIDS or Health Insurance," chronicled stories of how insurers had denied claims or coverage based on pre-existing conditions stemming from rape. The third article, "For 12-year-old Missing Arm, Insurance Has Run Out," Ivory examined disparities in insurance statutes from state-to-state. She focused on the lifetime and annual benefit caps that are considered illegal in some states but not in others. The Huffington Post and its Web site, through multimedia story-telling and community-based journalism, hoped to add to the larger debate over how to fix the nation's health care system.
See the archived story and questionnaire in which the reporter writes about how this story was written.