Although he initially shied away from writing about health care because of his history as a cancer survivor, in 2009 and 2010, Waas weighed in with a series of articles for Reuters, detailing how many of the nation's largest health insurance companies, improperly, and even illegally, canceled the policies of tens of thousands of customers shortly after they were diagnosed with HIV, cancer, and other life-threatening but costly diseases. One story disclosed that the health insurer, WellPoint, using a computer algorithm, identified women recently diagnosed with breast cancer and then singled them out for cancellation of their policies. The story not only caused considerable public outrage, but led Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, and President Barack Obama, to call on WellPoint to end the practice.