Payer Practices Are Result of Modern Insurance Market

"Blue Cross officials weren't doing anything wrong" by asking physicians to help them identify conditions the insurer could use to cancel patients' medical coverage, they "were following the incentives of the modern insurance market," according to an opinion piece by Ezra Klein, a staff writer at American Prospect. "If insurers existed in a market in which they had to compete on delivering better care, rather than competing on developing better techniques to deny care, we'd be far better off," Klein writes.

• "Not-Their-Fault Insurers" (Klein, Los Angeles Times, 2/24).