California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner plans to unveil proposed regulations Wednesday to combat the health insurance industry practice of dropping members with costly illnesses.

Poizner’s draft regulations would require insurers to write applications for coverage in plain English and allow applicants a “not sure” answer to questions about their preexisting medical conditions. In addition, they would bar insurers from dropping someone if the companies failed to thoroughly investigate an applicant’s medical history before issuing a policy.

It is the latest effort to curb rescission, an industrywide practice that has deprived thousands of Californians of healthcare coverage when they were sick, left many with crushing medical bills and saddled physicians and hospitals with uncollectible debt.

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