Opinion: Health insurers, like airplanes, need ‘black box recorders’
One death due to insurance industry misdeeds is one too many. Health insurance companies need to come out of the shadows and be transparent about their coverage and outcomes.
When two Boeing 737 Max airplanes crashed within the span of six months of each other, killing 346 people, black box recorders helped investigators find the cause. A similar kind of black box should be available to alert regulators, lawmakers, or the public to deaths due to health insurance company behavior.
Available evidence reveals that some commercial health insurance companies routinely fail to meet the health care needs of enrollees, although it’s impossible to know the full extent of the problem without more data.
