They Know What's in Your Medicine Cabinet

How insurance companies dig up applicants' prescriptionsand use them to deny coverage
Illustration by Aude Van Ryn
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That prescription you just picked up at the drugstore could hurt your chances of getting health insurance.

An untold number of people have been rejected for medical coverage for a reason they never could have guessed: Insurance companies are using huge, commercially available prescription databases to screen out applicants based on their drug purchases.