Short Skirts and Easy Money

The use of attractive women in short skirts to persuade men to participate in DNA tests makes for an eye-catching lead, but I wondered why the men's medical insurance companies would pay for the tests, much less pay exorbitant amounts.

It turns out to be the usual "fraud, waste and abuse" facilitated by a state government requirement that insurance companies pay for these tests to build DNA data bases of potential bone marrow donors.

In the New York Times:

If people expressed interest, Mr. Boffetti said, the models — who, for reasons that remain unclear, sometimes also wore electric-blue wigs — would hand them off to registry employees who would take mouth swabs.

“They got people to do this without telling them it could be a charge of $4,300 against their insurance,” he said.

New Hampshire passed a law in 2006 requiring insurers to pay for tissue-typing tests for potential bone marrow donors. But at the time, Mr. Boffetti said, proponents told lawmakers that each test would cost $100 or less.

The cost of medical insurance premiums keeps rising in part because states keep putting silly requirements in their laws forcing insurers to pay.

This has got to be one of the worst, if not the worst, example of the fraud, waste and abuse that results from silly state requirements. It wasn't medical care, and no one would pay such a high price out of his own pocket. But, use the law to force the insurer to pay, keep the insured ignorant, and then make piles of money.