Columnist Addresses WellPoint Profit, Benefits

Something is "askew" when an insurer such as WellPoint "harangues customers about their irksome 'demand for high-tech procedures,'" while its "coffers are bursting full," columnist Michael Hiltzik writes in his "Golden State" column in the Los Angeles Times.

According to Hiltzik, an audit of WellPoint commissioned by the Department of Managed Health Care excludes "almost everything that goes into a health insurance premium" in determining whether members were paying the cost of the WellPoint-Anthem merger. However, Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi (D) also has commissioned a report that will "pee[r] deeper into the insurer's books" than the DMHC audit, Hiltzik writes.

While "there's no guarantee that [the audit] will unearth any improper accounting, ... at least Garamendi's agency is making an issue of insurance company finances," Hiltzik writes (Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 2/6).