Health Insurance - Should Protect People From Claimities

From Twincities.com

Julie Forster's Dec. 1 article, "Health insurers pushing consumer-driven plans," described a disturbing trend ? plans with high out-of-pocket costs. Such plans may offer scant financial protection for those with limited disposable income.

Insured people already shoulder a tremendous financial burden for health care. Studies have found that many families with health insurance exhaust savings and forgo other necessities to pay bills not covered by health insurers. A recent Access Project report documented that bills of $500 to $1,000 can create serious financial hardship for families, including housing, employment and credit problems. If deductibles are excessive, policyholders may be discouraged from using it at all.

At the Access Project, we fear such plans offer low-income workers a false sense of security. Health insurance should assure access to needed services and protect people from financial calamity. Health insurance must include protection that would cap out-of-pocket expenses based on policyholders' incomes.

Health Insurance - Are Getting What You Pay For?

When a special committee of the Ohio legislature finished work this month, it failed to answer an important question: Are Ohioans getting what they pay for when they buy health insurance?

To explore the answer, ThisWeek, with the help of journalism students from Otterbein College and The Ohio State University, spent five weeks reviewing more than 5,000 insurance filings by more than 94 insurance companies since 1996.

The review found virtually every insurance company operating in Ohio is protecting its own interests at least potentially at the expense of its injured customers, who are buying insurance that they expect will protect them from devastating loss. In some important circumstances, it does not.

The issue is so complex that few ordinary consumers understand it, even in the unlikely event they read their insurance contracts in the first place. The bottom line is, if you are severely injured by someone else, Ohio law may require that your health insurance company be "made whole" for its expenses before you are made whole for your loss.

As one attorney told the commission, when people first become aware of this problem, after it is too late for them to do anything about it, they nearly universally ask, "If that's what the law is, what's the premium for?"

Health Insurace - Cost Go Through The Roof

From BostonHerald.com
By Jennifer Heldt Powell

Health insurance for a family of four could cost a whopping $30,000 a year a decade from now unless drastic steps are taken to curb skyrocketing costs, according to a study to be released today.

Doctors and hospitals have to be more upfront about their charges and consumers must be pushed into being more cost conscious, according to the report by the Massachusetts Business Roundtable.

?Unless the system becomes more affordable, we?re going to crash into a wall,? said Alan MacDonald, head of the business group.

The report was co-written by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care chief Charles D. Baker and Thomas H. Lee, network president for Partners HealthCare, parent of Brigham and Women?s and Massachusetts General Hospital.

The two normally sit on opposite sides of the negotiating table, but in the report they agree that costs are too high and that not enough is being done to bring them down.

The report suggests creating an independent agency that can collect information about health-care costs, quality and how well hospitals and doctors are doing. Among other suggestions, the report calls for more consideration of consumer-driven health plans, which have high deductibles.

If consumers have to pay more of the cost of health care, they are less likely to seek services they don?t need and more likely to choose cheaper providers, MacDonald said.

The report is an update to one done three years ago that called for more transparency in the system.

Only a small amount of progress has been made since then, MacDonald said.

Health Insurance - Children Health Insurance In Iowa

As companies trim their health insurance coverage to compensate for rising costs, two studies highlight economy's effects on children's health care.

The first found 16% of the children's parents lost their jobs and 14% lost health insurance coverage.

Children whose parents lost or simply changed jobs were twice as likely to lose their health insurance. Those who had private health insurance fared worse; they were three times more likely to lose health coverage.

the second study looked at 15,447 children for the effects of on-and-off health insurance coverage. The youngsters faced unfilled prescriptions, delayed care, and lack of doctor visits similar to their completely uninsured peers.

But Iowa, high on the list of children's health-insurance rates in the nation, doesn't seem to be hurting yet. In 2006, 93.7 percent of Iowa's children under age 18 had insurance, and most were covered by employment-based private plans, according to the State Data Center of Iowa.

And Iowa is an "interesting" case: High numbers of self-insured and self-employed individuals (i.e., farmers) are "doing a good job of covering their families," said Peter Damiano, a UI professor and the director of the Public Policy Center.

Health Insurance - Premium Up Sharply

Health insurance premiums rose this year at their slowest rate since 1999 However, that is still twice the rate of inflation.

Premiums rose 9.2 percent in 2005 and 11.2 percent in 2004, A Kaiser report said. Gary Claxton, a co-author, said the moderation in premium increases might be caused by a slowing in underlying medical cost inflation as well as by more competition in the insurance market.

The Kaiser Family Foundation's findings are based on a phone survey of 3,159 randomly selected private and public employers.

More than 155 million Americans get insurance through their jobs. Employers on average pick up 84 percent of the cost for individuals and 73 percent for families.

Overall, the total cost of health insurance for individuals now averages $4,242 a year. For families, the costs average $11,480.

Employers and their workers probably won't find much relief next year either, according to another survey of 167 large corporations that was conducted by Towers Perrin, a consulting firm. The companies expect their health care costs to rise by about 6 percent next year, which is well above the anticipated rate of overall inflation.

Health Insurance - New Massachusetts Health Insurance Plan

The premiums that health insurance companies in Massachusetts will charge to cover Massachusetts residents are in line with what the architects of the state's new health insurance law predicted, meaning there should be enough money to pay for the plan in its initial year, state officials said.

State regulators set the health insurance rates Thursday for residents who now lack insurance and earn less than 300 percent of the poverty level. The four insurers offering health coverage will charge monthly premiums of $276 to $391, depending on the type of plan a resident enrolls in and where they live. For residents at or below the poverty level -- $9,804 for a single person -- the state will pay the entire premium. For those above the poverty level, the state will pay a portion of the cost, with the state subsidy shrinking as income rises.