(Title stolen from the CRI twitter feed.)
I’ve spent most of the day driving home today, so I am trying to piece together the latest developments:
CRI puts up a blog post breaking what looks like news about a secret meeting that the IC is now having on the morning of 13 April. (13 April at 1 PM is when there is a Joint House and Senate committee meeting to discuss insurance issues.):
In an e-mail sent Monday evening to the members of the two committees, Stewart appears to be trying to preempt some of the questions she’ll likely face during the public hearings.
“On behalf of Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart, CIR-ML you are invited to attend a meeting regarding the processes utilized by health insurers that resulted in the denial of medically necessary tests requested by a patient’s physician,” Stewart’s administrative assistant Lorielee Harrison wrote in the e-mail. “The meeting will be held April 13th, 10:00 am at the Delaware Department of Insurance Office, 841 Silver Lake Blvd […]
Doctors and insurance company executives were going to “call in” to answer questions and concerns.
Lee Williams tried to RSVP for this meeting and got no response. He also tried to get KWS and Elliot Jacobson to address why these meetings were being held behind closed doors. No answer, of course. Until this:
A hastily posted Press Release opening this meeting to the public. Complete with a denial that this meeting was ever meant to be held behind closed doors.
Isn’t this interesting? After telling the NJ while she was in Denver that she would be amenable to investigating these denials of service if there was an established pattern, and after Senator Rockefeller (from West Virginia) wanted info from BCBSD, and after Byron Short schedules his hearing we get a public meeting from the IC on this. Remarkable how this works out.
But seems desperate and clumsy in a late effort to get in front of it all. And if I were members of the Senate or House Committees, I wouldn’t attend. You’ll see her that afternoon and why wrap yourselves up in the manipulation? If I were Byron Short, I’d conduct my own hearings and then call the insurance execs and medical people to provide additional information that you’ve determined you need. There is no need to walk right into whatever spin is on tap until you can deal with that spin on your own terms.
EDITED: To include the link to the CRI blog post cited — sorry this got missed. Also, the NJ has an article laying out a decent timeline of the current state of events.