The gruesome killing of UnitedHealthcare's CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024 seemed only to draw further attention to the ongoing debate over health insurers' practices. Reporting by everyday Americans and investigative journalists on the widespread use of claim denials by health care companies would be met by an increasingly litigious insurance industry, determined to silence its critics and the ensuing public debate.
Miranda Yaver's new book, "Coverage Denied: How Health Insurers Drive Inequality in the United States", offers the first comprehensive account of coverage denials —the process by which health insurers decide not to cover health services that appear to be within the scope of a plan's benefits. Yaver, a health policy professor at the University of Pittsburgh, offers a sobering account of the ways in which coverage denials damage patient health and exacerbate inequalities along income and racial lines, as well as the political context in which this system of health care — rife with administrative burden — arose.
Drawing on literatures spanning American political economy, health policy, medicine, and law, and combining rich interview material with administrative data and original survey data, Yaver draws critical attention to the tens of millions of medical claims denied by health insurers every year, shining a necessary light on our inequitable health care system.
Want to learn more? Pre-order your copy of “Coverage Denied" from Cambridge University Press and sign up for the book launch on April 28!
