The last couple of days have seen an outrageous example of cherry picking in the individual health insurance market: 60 Minutes did an "exposé" of underwriting for individual health plans, where likely just under 20 million Americans buy health insurance. 

First, with respect to underwriting: well, insurance cannot exist without underwriting (which is forbidden in group health insurance, thereby increasing the costs). When a sick, middle-aged person loses his job and goes forth to buy individual health insurance, it will cost a lot.  The government is to blame for this because the tax code drives us to get a job with health benefits, not to buy health insurance when we are young and healthy that is guaranteed renewable for life.  If this tax bias were eliminated (as President Bush proposed this January), we would buy guaranteed renewable health insurance whe we were young and healthy and keep it lifelong, eliminating the tax bias.

With respect to rescission (aka post-claims underwriting), what can I say?  Yes, I suppose insurers would get away with it if they could, so that's why it's appropriate for the state to establish a regulator with quasi-judicial powers to deal with these cases.  But what's the use of parading these horror stories in the drive-by media?  The insurer cannot respond, because it cannot discuss the case without the (former) beneficiary granting permission, which he's hardly likely to do.  Stories like these just whet the media's appetite for scandal.