By Catherine Seipp

I was happy to learn that Blue Cross, California’s largest private health insurer, has to pay a $200,000 fine for improperly voiding sick subscribers’ policies - in many cases years after the subscribers had applied for coverage. But my pleasure in this was mitigated by the knowledge that to Blue Cross and its parent company WellPoint, $200,000 is basically just chump change.

HPV: Pretty and pretty lethal.

Catherine Seipp’s daughter is starting college. After some motherly advice, Seipp observes that when it comes to life-saving medicine and vaccines, the far Right boasts as big a nut bowl as the far Left.

The first of a series on the bizarre alternate universe of America’s current health care “system” as experienced daily by a practicing physician.