The "Plain English" movement thankfully comes to health insurance policies

An Op-Ed from today's New York Times talks about new legislation in Rhode Island that will mandate plain English for all consumer health insurance policies.  Based on the Flesch-Kincaid test of readability, most language in health insurance policies is written for a graduate-school level audience whereas most Rhode Islanders, according to this Op-Ed piece, read at an eighth grade level.  Consequently, the new law will require that policies issued in Rhode Island be geared to that audience. 

The article also includes some good examples of "before" and "after" liposuctioned paragraphs.

Finally, the Op-Ed is critical of the proposed national health care bill because, although it requires certain portions of insurance policies to be written in plain language, it doesn't go far enough by extending this requirement to the entire policies.

You can read the full Op-Ed here.

I am the scholarship dude.

(jbl)