The use of a faulty database by U.S. insurance companies has led to Americans being charged BILLIONS in inflated medical expenses.

Relieved that they caught this error?

Well...it's not exactly an error.

It seems that the companies were doing it ON PURPOSE.

Not exactly shocking, right? I mean, we are talking about health insurance companies, here. But that doesn't make it any less infuriating.

At the end of last month, a Congressional investigation revealed that two-thirds of U.S. insurance companies used a faulty database that intentionally underestimates the cost of medical services.

Yep, you read that right—the database, called Ingenix, was set up to overcharge patients for seeing out-of-network doctors. For over a decade, insurance companies submitted data to Ingenix to determine the typical cost for care received outside their networks.

This is where things got shady—Congressional investigators are saying that the data was deliberately skewed to underestimate the costs of that care...meaning patients had to pay more out-of-pocket.

If you ask me, it amounts to nothing less than stealing your hard-earned money.

Some of the biggest names in insurance were using this database—Aetna, Cigna, and Wellpoint, among others. In one case, Aetna allegedly took out the highest 20% of medical charges before submitting the data—and officials with Ingenix tweaked the data EVEN MORE after that.

Now, we can't really be blamed for never thinking to check for these overcharges. Lawmakers point to the convoluted language of insurance handbooks and notices as part of the problem. I know I get a headache trying to figure out how much is covered and how much I can expect to pay. At a recent hearing, a former Cigna exec admitted this is intentional:

"Insurers know that policyholders are so baffled by these notices they usually just ignore them or throw them away. And that's exactly the point. If they were more understandable, more consumers might realize that they are being ripped off."

Well, at least he's honest...AFTER leaving his job with Cigna, of course.