It seems like a risk with no benefit, with the only justification being "all data could be valuable eventually so let's never delete even the personal sensitive data." Ironically, the data did eventually become valuable - to someone else.
It used to be common for insurance companies to look carefully at your coverage record, and if you had any time during which you were not covered, they'd say stuff like "Oh, that horrible cancer you have? Yeah, we're not paying for it because it was a 'pre-existing condition' that you got during that weekend you had between two jobs six years ago." And the law let them do that.
Health care in the US is . . . the phrase "utterly broken" isn't strong enough. We need a good fifteen syllable German word for how fantastically fucked up it is.
Of course I'm trying to explain Anthem hanging onto data. Probably it was totally selfish ("we can send them spam") or sheer laziness.
> they'd say stuff like "Oh, that horrible cancer you have?
> Yeah, we're not paying for it because it was a 'pre-
> existing condition' that you got during that weekend you
> had between two jobs six years ago."
This is just a random link describing one scenario - http://www.yourwisconsininjurylawyers.com/library/claim-deni...
I believe this is no longer allowed under relatively recent law.
IIUC, not since Obamacare went into full effect in 2014. One of the main provisions of it was that it became illegal to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
They still need the records because one of the other effects of Obamacare is that it became illegal to not have health insurance, but it's broken in a different way now.