Recently I was completing a health insurance application for a young, dynamic plaintiff attorney in seemingly excellent physical health. All the "have you ever had or are now having symptoms, treatment, surgery, or a diagnosis of any of the following" health questions in the application were answered with a favorable "No."
I continued, "Which prescription medications are you currently or have taken within the last 24 months." His answer: "None, really, jus a little Xanax every once in a while, rarely actually, that my doctor prescribed for when I feel a little uptight, but that's all."
This entry in a health insurance application will set off raised eyebrows and a battery of questions in an insurance company underwriting department. They will need to know, in detail, from the attending physician, "Severity? When? Medications and Dosage? Recurrence?"
My experience has been that the chances of obtaining health insurance coverage in this type of case will include a very long wait to obtain a decision and a 70 to 90 percent rate of declination.
In summary, the chances for this young, healthy specimen of a man to obtain an individual health insurance policy are slim to none. If he does get lucky he will have a restrictive rider and/or a hefty premium increase in his insurance policy.
How about an attractive, athletic female tennis player on a partial tennis scholarship at a university?
She did not want to gain weight and became mildly obsessive about the possibility of putting on pounds. She told her doctor about her concern and he immediately prescribed Prozac, which she took for three months over a year ago, never touched the drug again, and she got over her obsessive-compulsive mood. Flat-out decline! No health insurance, NADA!
Mood-changing drugs are a valuable tool in the physician's medicine chest; however, I see too many applicants for health and life insurance who are being blackballed because their physicians employ what I call "the pill of the moment" quick-relief therapy.
Insurance companies are scared to death of a mental or nervous condition. I have been to seminars conductedby insurance companies that declare a fear of these conditions by saying, "The problem is that we have difficulty pinpointing when these conditions started and the prognosis is always vague. So rather than dealing with this uncertainty, we simply decline to issue the policy."
My solution to a portion of this problem is so dern far-fetched and simple that I know a good Mercedes-Benz and Hummer-driving physician will laugh at me and add a good dose of hate to the boiling pot.
Shoot, here it goes anyway: REDUCE YOUR PATIENT LOAD, DR. FEELGOOD!
As to the other culprit (insurance companies): WHAT HAPPENED TO TAKING A RISK ONCE IN A WHILE!
Pray for out soldier, sailors, aviators, and innocent Iraqi civilians. Implore God to keep George W. Bush and his cohorts from continuing to mess up this great nation by their gross inefficiency.

(Please send your insurance questions to Henri D. Kahn, c/o LareDOS, 1812 Houston St. 78040; fax 791-4737; or e-mail laredos@swbell.net.)