Today's Boston Globe carried a piece of corporate propaganda entitled Lobbies backing health reforms: Insurers change their tune from 1993-94 debate. Rather than deconstruct it line by line, I will just say what is conspicuous by its absence: any mention of single payer. Read more…

UnitedHealth to Insure the Right to Insurance

For these economically uncertain times, the UnitedHealth Group has a first-of-its-kind product: the right to buy an individual health policy at some point in the future even if you become sick.

Yes, you read that right, they want to insure your future prospect to buy insurance. As Krugman said of the Busheviki, their solution to every problem is always to rationalize what they wanted to do anyway.

You may wonder how they came up with the idea, fortunately we have a secret tape of the meeting.

Ceci Connolly has an article entitled, U.S. 'Not Getting What We Pay For': Many Experts Say Health-Care System Inefficient, Wasteful, where she quotes, without irony, all the parasites of our health neglect system.

First a few words about Ceci Connolly; if you read The Daily Howler, you know that more than any other member of the celebrity press corps, she is responsible for smearing Al Gore and giving us Bush. An example of her notion of humor:
Smile-a-while (10/3/00) Read more…

Caught by a Change in Health Care

She needs these machines and others because she has spinal muscular atrophy type 2, a disease that weakens muscles throughout her body. She also needs nursing care 12 hours a day.

Without the nurses, her parents, Philomena (aka Phil) and John Rogers, who is the chief information officer at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, would be in a very tough spot. The outside assistance, covered by their federal Aetna health insurance policy, means better care for Shelby and a more normal life for her parents and three sisters. Read more…

Has the Health-Insurance Industry Buckled on Reform? Sort of, But Not Really Read more…

Look for Collection Account Balances to Fall Under Universal Health Care, Not Volume

If America shifts to a mandate-driven universal healthcare system, debt collectors that currently specialize in medical receivables shouldn't expect fewer accounts. But the balances forwarded by clients may be smaller.

Health Insurers See 'Universal' Opportunity

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Health insurance companies such as Humana and UnitedHealth always seem to pay a price for "gifts" from the federal government. Read more…

Hospitals X-Ray Patient Credit Scores

More and more are buying credit data to see if the sick can afford treatment

A CONVERSATION WITH AMERICA'S HEALTH INSURANCE PLANS.

I gave Robert Zirkelbach, AHIP's director of Strategic Communications, a call to talk through the proposal his organization released today and get more specifics on their stance towards community rating, public plans, and affordability questions. Our chat is transcribed below. ... Read more…

Discussion on Required reading: MA compensation within the Senior Insurance Forum, part of the Insurance Agents and Brokers Forum category.

I think the link found under the post by Wellcare FMO regarding the Humana letter to CMS should be required reading for all agents in the MA market.
http://www.tbrins.com/humana.pdf

You will note that the Humana spokesman puts the level of commission they support at 4% of the "monthly government capitation rate paid to plans" and goes on to put that %-age at a dollar amount of $338. Simple math will tell you that they are getting $8450 (low-end... that means they make more on some plans). Read more…

Unhealthy insurers

US health insurers, already feeling unwell at the prospect of a Barack Obama presidency, had their condition further downgraded this past week as the financial crisis hit earnings. While the patient has suffered a bit of a shock, the prognosis is better than the average 61 per cent drop over the past year in the shares of six leading managed-care companies would suggest. Read more…

Anger in Philadelphia: CIGNA + McCain = Murder by Spreadsheet

Six days before the most important election in my lifetime, it was an auspicious moment to be standing in the lobby of this Murder by Spreadsheet factory. Read more…

Detroit Families Target Of AHIP Campaign

It was moderated by New York Tunes journalist Dirk Johnson and hosted by the America's Health Insurance Plans' (AHIP) Campaign for an American Solution. Karen Ignagni, president and CEO, will take these stories back with her to Washington.

It is a common practice for journalists to moderate political debates and to preside over community discussions. But this is different; this is Dirk Johnson lending what remains of the NYT's prestige to what is clearly an astroturf stunt. Keep that in mind when you see his byline.

Private health insurance in Mass. not living up to hype

The critics point out a number of worrisome signs. First, the part of the plan that is supposed to get those who supposedly can afford insurance to pony up, is failing -- mainly because the cost of the private coverage is so high. The doctors note the lowest-cost plan for a couple in their 50s costs $8,200 annually and includes a $2,000 per person deductible.

Big money to insurers

Meanwhile, the private insurers are making out like bandits. Blue Cross, as the state's largest insurer, supposedly is acquiring a surplus of more than $1 million each day. It was able to pay its outgoing CEO a $16.4 million retirement bonus. Read more…

WellPoint’s IT woes taking toll; St. Francis contract dispute just the latest problem involving tardy payments

A year of computer snafus boiled over Oct. 13 when the St. Francis hospital system declared WellPoint Inc. in breach of its contract because of habitually late payments.

Those computer problems already have helped to wipe out the Indianapolis-based health insurer’s expected profit growth for the year. And some analysts fear WellPoint will continue to lose customers and market share until the end of 2009. Read more…

Last year John Bertko dumped a net of 8,300 shares of Humana stock. Since November 2006 Bruce Goodman has dumped a net of 31,251 shares of Humana stock.

Merely stating the net sales of shares does not give the scale of greed we are dealing with. If you go through the trades of Humana’s Board of Directors you see parasites exercising options for little or nothing and selling at huge gains. Someone needs to ask Yarmuth and the rest of the Kentucky delegation, if Humana does not believe in it’s business model, why should the rest of us? Read more…

Retiree Hires Attorney to Keep Her Coverage

“I was promised lifetime insurance by my employer (USA Today). In May, my employer farmed out billing to Aetna and refused to take my check,” said Coline George of Camarillo, California. “Aetna had no record of me. The only informed person I talked to said that Aetna only did my employer's COBRA account.” ... Read more…

Healthcare-NOW! and the single-payer movement needs your support in Washington DC Monday, September 22nd! In addition to the 2nd Annual Health Care Justice Vigil at the Capitol Reflecting Pool at 6pm, Single-Payer Activists will be demonstrating at the the American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Conference on Medicaid and Medicare. AHIP is the organization responsible for creating the broken healthcare system in the United States by developing plans that focus on increasing profit, while limiting necessary care, causing thousands of deaths in the United States every year. Because of these corrupt policies, 42% of people under the age of 65 have no insurance or are without adequate coverage. Read more…

Blue Cross Tells Pregnant Mom "No Way"

"What's it like to have to decide whether to abort your baby because no one will give you medical coverage during your pregnancy? That's something I discovered in the summer of 2006 when-during a three-month lull in personal health insurance coverage-I found out I was pregnant," said Susanne McDowell of Missoula, Mont.

Americans Who Have Insurance —But Still No Access To Care, Part I:

A friend who lives in Boston complained, not long ago, about not being able to find a physician. In Boston? “Come on,” I said. “This is like claiming you couldn’t find a liquor store.”

“They’re all oncologists and cardiologists,” he grumbled. “Last week I cut my hand badly enough that it needed stitches. I have good insurance. But I couldn’t get an appointment with my family doctor—or any of my friends’ doctors. I didn’t want to spend hours in the ER. So I wound up going to my sister’s house. She sewed it up at her kitchen table.”

So what did he pay the insurance company all that money for, then? Read more…

AHIP Launches New Long-Term Care Education Campaign

The centerpiece of this campaign is a new consumer-friendly website, http://www.MyLifeMyFamily.com, to provide consumers with basic information about long-term care insurance. The website provides videos that feature real-life stories from current policyholders, an interactive online quiz, and additional resources on long-term care insurance. Read more…

Skylanda Read more…

[I'm leaving this sticky because we've got two RL stories in comments already, one where this series of posts saved a reader over $1000. Read on! -- lambert]

How Crafty Health Insurers Are Denying Care

An estimated 10 to 15 percent of claims are denied for various reasons, some of them technical, such as not meeting filing deadlines or failing to get pretreatment authorizations.

Edit - Read more…

Initiative on health care will be on ballot after all

PHOENIX — Arizonans will get to decide in November whether they want to block the state from imposing a universal health-care program, after all. ...

... State House Minority Leader Phil Lopes, D-Tucson, has proposed a universal health-care plan that would pool everything being spent by all parties on health care — including government, business and individuals — to set up a plan under which everyone gets the same basic coverage. Lopes has pegged the cost at close to $35 billion. Read more…

The Latest from AHIP:

AHIP's Campaign for An American Solution Listening Tour Comes to Detroit

DETROIT, Mich.— Detroit families and community leaders will share their health care stories and their priorities for health care reform at a roundtable today with representatives from the health insurance industry.

Detroit, MI is the second stop on a listening tour conducted by America's Health Insurance Plans' (AHIP) Campaign for An American Solution. The campaign is a new national grassroots and educational initiative to build support for workable health care reform based on six core principles: coverage, affordability, quality, value, choice and portability. Read more…

INSIDE AN INSURANCE INDUSTRY DENIAL MACHINE

The first concept you need to understand is the Medical loss ratio. You and I are losses in insurance industry lingo.

The medical loss ratio refers to the percentage of dollars actually spent on medical care versus administrative costs or profit. The higher the ratio, the more money is being spent on actual delivery of care. Components of the medical loss ratio include payments to physicians, hospitals, pharmacists and other providers of health care. Read more…