In today’s newsletter: A trial reveals how insurers try to control doctors; a voting bill prompted by our reporting; a risk assessment tool that’s keeping prisoners locked up; and more from our newsroom.
Blue Cross authorized mastectomies and breast reconstructions for women with cancer but refused to pay the full doctors’ bills. A jury called it fraud and awarded the practice $421 million.
Prompted by ProPublica’s reporting on efforts by right-wing activists to disallow ballots, North Carolina Democrats have introduced a bill designed to prevent votes from being tossed out based on postelection rule changes. The bill faces uncertain prospects in the GOP-controlled legislature.
The Voter Protection and Reliance Act, filed last week in the North Carolina House, says that ballots cast in state elections will be counted based on the laws and procedures in place on Election Day. It also forbids votes from being discarded because of technical or clerical errors in voter registrations.
“People in jail have … lost hope in being able to do anything to reduce their time.”
— Calvin Alexander, a 70-year-old prisoner with a clean disciplinary record who thought he had done everything the Louisiana parole board asked of him to earn an early release from prison. After a computerized scoring system adopted by the state Department of Public Safety and Corrections deemed him a moderate risk of reoffending, should he be released, he received a letter from the prison officials informing him he was no longer eligible for parole. Local Reporting Network member Richard Webster dove into the risk assessment tool, TIGER, for ProPublica and Verite News.
