Insurance Companies

It's the news you expect to hear about your 2001 Honda Civic. Or anything, really, that's made of steel, wire and rubber. Cars are totaled -- not dogs. Yet that's exactly what an insurance company told one woman: Sorry m'am. Your dog's been totaled. According to this crazy report out of Denver, a woman named Marcia Pinkstaff told ABC7 News that her Lab mix named Sasha, who's 9, was crossing the street in a crosswalk when a van hit her. Sasha was injured, but survived.

Perhaps lost in the cacophony of the debt ceiling debate in Congress was news that the federal government will now require insurance companies to provide a substantial list of preventative care measures for women, including mammography, domestic violence counseling and breast-feeding support, without requiring a co-pay or a deductible. If you heard anything at all about this, it was probably conservatives complaining that the list also includes birth control pills and the dreaded morning-after pill, which interrupts the fertilization cycle before a fertilized egg can attach to the uterine wall.

The Maryland General Assembly is presently considering a bill that would require health insurance companies in the state to provide coverage for therapy designed to address the challenges of autism. Half the nation's states have already passed similar legislation, in one form or another, and Maryland should too. At primary issue is a type of therapy known as applied behavior analysis, or ABA. This is the most thoroughly researched and peer-reviewed method for addressing the challenges faced by those with an autism spectrum disorder.

The alleged extortion scheme outlined by federal prosecutors this week seemed to benefit both auto accident victims, who avoided paying towing fees and insurance deductibles, and Baltimore police officers, who got kickbacks for making referrals to a car repair shop. But insurance industry representatives warn that the money accident victims saved on the front end of this arrangement will be made up later with higher premiums. Inflated towing and storage fees are the second-most common type of fraudulent claim, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

Republicans in Congress are wasting time and energy in dismantling President Obama's accomplishments of the past two years. Instead of getting their hollow heads together and draft a plan to create more jobs, they are just trying to destroy what is already done. That's called "self-annihilation. " We, the American people, are watching. I'm a senior citizen. As such, I completely oppose the Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The act provides seniors with the freedom to get the care we need, including preventive care, lower cost prescription drugs, and Medicare that we can count on. The act frees Americans from the fear of insurance companies raising premiums by double digits with no recourse or accountability.

Transamerica Life Insurance Co. will move its Baltimore operations to 100 Light St., filling some of the hole left in the downtown skyscraper when Legg Mason relocated across town last year. The life insurance firm, part of Aegon, has agreed to rent about 140,000 square feet of space by November 2011 and will move more than 700 employees there. Lexington Realty Trust, which owns the building, says it will be renamed “Transamerica Tower.” “The addition of Transamerica as a tenant and the renaming of 100 Light Street as the Transamerica Tower successfully culminates our efforts to reposition the building as the premier Class A office property in Downtown Baltimore,” T. Wilson Eglin, Lexington’s chief executive, said in a statement.

A life insurance company plans to kick off a nationwide hiring campaign with a job fair in Hanover next week. American General Life and Accident Insurance Co., which said it plans to hire at least 4,000 sales agents nationally over two years, will talk with local applicants Monday from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Arundel Mills Mall food court parking lot. A spokeswoman said the firm wants to hire as many qualified workers in the Baltimore area...

Martin Ernest Dannenberg, who as a young World War II Army sergeant discovered a copy of the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws, one of Nazi Germany's most infamous documents, died Aug. 18 in his sleep at his Guilford home. He was 94. In a 1999 interview with The Baltimore Sun, Mr. Dannenberg, who was a special agent in charge of an Army counterintelligence team, recalled the moment April 28, 1945, when he realized the significance of the documents he had found in a small-town bank in Eichstatt, Germany.

Dr. Dan McDougal, an internist who treated the addicted and "lashed out" at insurance companies he felt compromised patient care, died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, May 10 at his Williamsport home. The former Towson resident was 64. Born in Bethesda and raised in Manhattan Beach, Calif., he earned a bachelor's degree from Stanford University and was a 1971 graduate of the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center of Pennsylvania State University. He then spent two years in the Air Force working at a drug and alcohol detoxification center in Grandview, Mo., where he treated many Vietnam War veterans.