Where was the legislation?

Tammy Bruce notes The Hartford is lowering the price of health insurance for some breast cancer survivors.

The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. is cutting life insurance rates for some women with breast cancer, citing improved treatment and research that is helping more women survive the disease. The policies, which will cost the same as for healthy women, will be available to women 40 and older who have been treated for early stages of breast cancer. Previously, those women would have paid more for coverage or would have been denied coverage.

Every now and then, I see an article declaring that if the evil insurance companies would cover this or that benefit, it would save money. That they refuse to cover it is chalked up to greed or short-sightedness. (Or maybe short-sighted greed.)

I've lately come to wonder how it is outsiders writing vitriolic op-ed pieces would know more about the insurance industry than people who make their living in it. Doesn't it make sense that if some policy change would save an insurance company money, its CFO would leap to implement it? Maybe the reason they don't is that they know more of the variables involved, and have a better handle on the plusses and minues of various changes in policy. Maybe they realize it won't save them money.

Now, The Hartford has decided certain classes of women who have been treated for breast cancer are not more expensive to cover than average. Accordingly, they have adjusted their policy to reflect that – without a Congressional investigation or any new legislation to force the issue.