Janice Schakowsky: “I want to talk a little bit about something else that stops right away. And that's what is perhaps the meanest of all…”

“I want to talk a little bit about something else that stops right away. And that's what is perhaps the meanest of all the insurance company practices, and this is called rescission. Which in plain English means canceling your health insurance when you get sick. We had testimony in our committee from a woman who had been a nurse most of her working life. She is now in her fifties. She left nursing to start another kind of career, went out in the private market and bought insurance that she could afford, thought it covered everything she needed. Then she was diagnosed with very aggressive breast cancer. She went to her insurance company. She got scheduled for the surgery. The Friday before the Monday of her surgery--her name is Robin Beaton. I will never forget her because we adjourned the committee for 5 minutes while she got herself together. And she said that on that Friday, they called her and said, I'm sorry. We went back in your medical records, and what we found is something on there that says that you had a preexisting condition. And do you know what it was? There were two things. One was acne that, of course, could lead to some sort of a cancer cell. They said that she had lied about that. She didn't even remember that.”