Health Insurance Plan

As a small-business owner and entrepreneur, I am writing to urge the Maine legislature to pass LD 431 — An Act to Enable the Dirigo Health Program to be Self-Administered, sponsored by Rep. Jill Conover of Oakland. I appeared in November at the Bureau of Insurance public hearing in Gardiner regarding the outrageous rate increase Anthem was then requesting for the Dirigo product. I left that hearing mystified by Anthem's reluctance to answer questions. I am convinced from what I heard and saw that Anthem is no friend to the Dirigo plan or its subscribers.

More People Taking Advantage Of Health Savings Accounts

New rules governing health savings accounts are making them more attractive to consumers, who can use HSAs to help reduce health insurance costs now - and, potentially, in retirement. Health savings accounts are like individual retirement accounts for health care. They were created by Congress in 2003 so workers could cover some of their medical costs with pretax money if they have high-deductible health insurance plans. The idea is that workers and their employers can fund the tax-free accounts, with withdrawals used for copays at doctors' offices, prescription and nonprescription medicines, and hospital services not covered by insurance. Because unused balances in the HSAs can be rolled over from year to year, some financial advisers are suggesting that the accounts can be a way for families to accumulate money to be used to cover health care costs in retirement, including Medicare deductibles and long-term care insurance.

Consumers Beware: Individual Health Plans Are Confusing

Today's Health Insurance Market Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers TAMPA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 20, 2007--Consumers who purchase individual health insurance plans solely on the initial price they are quoted by a broker or via the internet could be hurting themselves financially and be missing out on important benefits they probably want, states Charles O'Neill, CEO of Avalon Healthcare. More than nine percent of all people insured buy individual plans and the numbers in Florida are increasing, O'Neill said. Avalon is Florida's newest statewide health plan selling individual and group consumer directed health insurance plans. "Buying health insurance is confusing and while products may look alike, most are not," O'Neill said. "As more Floridians purchase consumer directed health plans for themselves and their families, they need to become better educated about the products they are buying.

If physician opts out, you're on your own

I have Medicare and a federal retiree health insurance plan. The specialist I want to go to has opted out of Medicare, and I had to sign a contract with her that I would accept the full cost of her services which would ordinarily be covered by Medicare.

I agreed to this because I thought my federal coverage would pay the bill for me. However, I was billed a lot of money anyway. Is that right?

Because you entered into a private contract with your physician, Medicare will not pay any portion of the charges, and your federal plan, which supplements Medicare, won't increase its payment to the specialist, either.

The payment from your supplemental plan will be limited to the amount that would have been paid after the original Medicare plan paid. You are responsible for paying the difference between the billed amount and the amount your supplemental plan paid.

Gazette Opinion: Lawmakers must CHIP away kids' care barrier

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus and a ballroom full of parents, health-care professionals and policy makers this week turned the spotlight on national efforts to insure American children. Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, held a hearing in Billings to get ideas on improving the federal Children's Health Insurance Program, which will expire in September. Baucus said reauthorizing and expanding CHIP is his No. 1 health-care priority and he pledged to have it accomplished well before the Sept. 30 deadline.In Montana, the state's Children's Health Insurance Plan faces a tighter deadline. Any improvement of the program for the next two years must be authorized by the Legislature before it adjourns in the next three weeks.Senate Bill 22 sponsored by Sen. Dan Weinberg proposes to expand eligibility by raising the maximum family income from 150 percent of poverty to 175 percent of poverty ($36,177 annual income for a family of four).

Small Business Health Insurance Pools Approved By House

Des Moines, Iowa - Making good on another promise outlined in their Plan for Prosperity, the Iowa House overwhelmingly approved a bill today to allow small businesses to pool their purchasing power to get better rates on health insurance for their employees.

"One of our top priorities this year was to help small business with rising health care costs and I'm pleased we've made progress today," said State Representative Dawn Pettengill, who helped craft the bill and managed it through the House. "Many small businesses struggle with rapidly rising health insurance costs or cannot even offer health care coverage because it will put them out of business. I believe the proposal we passed today will provide some relief."

House File 790 allows businesses with 2-50 employees to join a group health insurance plan through an association.

Event Backgrounder: President Bush participates in a Meeting on ...

The President will participate in a meeting on Health Savings Accounts in the Roosevelt Room of The White House. Today, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) released a report showing the number of individuals covered by Health Savings Accounts has increased by 43 percent over the last year, from about 3.2 million in January 2006 to about 4.5 million in January 2007. In addition, according to the report, twenty- seven percent of the new enrollees in the individual market were previously uninsured. BIOGRAPHIES OF PARTICIPANTS Secretary Mike Leavitt, Department of Health and Human Services Lucia Ward Alexander, Product Manager, CareFirst, Blue Cross Blue Shield (Pikesville, Maryland) Lucia Alexander, age 55, has worked for CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) (an affiliate of BCBS that services the DC Metro area) for 22 years.

Got insurance?

The premiums for USU's student health insurance are dropping 15 percent next year due to decreased claims during the 2005-2006 school year, according to the Health and Wellness Center's insurance coordinator.

Noelle Hansen said the insurance company that USU contracts with wanted to help the students out since USU had a year with lower-than-usual claims.

"Since we actually had a good year, the insurance company wanted to give back," Hansen said. "We hope this move will help students feel like they can purchase the university's insurance."

USU offers a basic health insurance plan through FirstUnderwriters, which is available to all university students taking six or more credits and their dependents, according to the Student Health and Wellness Center Web site.

On the road with Gov. Blagojevich

I was probably more surprised than anyone when I was invited to tag along on Gov. Rod Blagojevich's road trip last week. The governor toured the state to push his universal health insurance plan and his gross receipts tax on business. I was on the bus with him for three days, and we talked for countless hours.

I had a cordial relationship with Blagojevich back when he was in the Illinois House, but that was a long time ago. Over the years, the governor granted interviews to almost every other news bureau in the Statehouse, but I was excluded. He has visited the editorial boards of every major, and quite a few minor, newspapers in the state -- but I was kept away. During one press conference a few years ago, Blagojevich refused to answer any questions from me at all, so I whispered my questions to a couple of willing Chicago TV reporters who relayed them on my behalf, knowing he couldn't ignore them.

Farmers' Health Coop Insurance Takes Effect

More than 3,500 state farmers and agri-businesses have filed their applications for the new cooperative health insurance plan. According to the Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives, the Farmers' Health Cooperative of Wisconsin program--which provides affordable, high-quality health insurance--took effect on April 1.

WFC President Bill Oemichen says he is very pleased with the high level of interest the cooperative is receiving.

"Many producers and agribusinesses have told us that we are providing the type of high quality insurance coverage they have been waiting for and that the insurance represents a very good value," said Oemichen. "This interest is translating to very strong enrollment rates in the cooperative."

FHCW's six plans range from low-premium, high-deductible coverage in conjunction with a Health Savings Account to a low-deductible plan aimed at agri-businesses.

Rx Discount Card for the Uninsured

When it comes to prescription drugs, Americans without health insurance are disadvantaged twice over. First, they lack the insurance coverage to pay for the drugs. As a result, adults without insurance are half as likely to get the benefits of prescription drugs as insured adults, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Second, they pay higher prices than anyone else. The uninsured pay 18 percent to 25 percent more for all prescription drugs on average than the insured. They do not get the group discounts that health insurance plans get when they negotiate with drug companies.

The best long-term solution for the uninsured is to make certain that everyone has health care coverage. A near-term approach is for states to negotiate group discounts on behalf of the uninsured. In such a scenario, the uninsured get access to the discounts by enrolling and using a discount card at participating pharmacies and mail order services.

ERISA and Arnold's health plan: Poizner's lawyers "are looking at ...

California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner called a little while ago to talk about the huge mess with the State Compensation Insurance Fund. After a while, I got to shift the topic to my white whale: the governor's health insurance plan and its (non)compliance with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the 1974 federal law which bans states from telling companies which offer benefits what those benefits must entail. In nearly three months of interviews, Nexis hunts and Googling, this is what I have learned:

3) No court ruling since 1974 has undercut the core premise of ERISA, which is that multistate companies should be able to offer the same benefits nationwide and not be undercut by the dictates of 50 individual state legislatures.

Church Community Organization optimistic about children's health ...

Church Community Organization members and supporters joined about 400 in Washington in mid-March to rally support for the Missouri health insurance plan that aids poor and uninsured children.The plan is part of the federal program called State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. The program is up for renewal this year and speculation is a reduction in poverty guidelines could eliminate hundreds of thousands of children nationally from the program and at least 40,000 Missouri children could lose coverage.Long-time CCO leader, the Rev. Rayfield Burns, Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, 2310 E Linwood Blvd., said he joined 75 other clergy as part of the People Improving Communities through Organizing national network. Then about another 325 active community members joined."We did not know how we would be received because it was a pretty big task," Burns said.

Brockton health center fighting to keep universal health insurance ...

As the deadline for the commonwealth's universal health insurance plan nears, Brockton health officials remain adamant about the need to make it affordable.

Treatment for most uninsured patients in the center is funded from the state's free-care pool.

Audit gives insurance a clean bill of health: Questions remain as ...

DECATUR - An audit of the city's health insurance program shows no major problems, City Manager Steve Garman said.But important questions appear to remain unanswered about why taxpayers are footing the bill for one of the most expensive plans in the region, Councilman Dan Caulkins said.The Decatur City Council last year approved spending $59,225 for Segal Co. to study the city's health insurance plan.Caulkins advocated the study to find ways to control surging health insurance costs for city employees.The report indicates the city should remain self-insured, and Consociate Group, the third-party administrator, has gone above and beyond expected performance.Garman said the report is reassuring."We continue to assert, as we have since the fall of 2004, that the pressing area of concern lies within the area of city employee contributions to health care costs," Garman wrote in a memo to council members.Nonunion employees recently switched to a plan in which they contribute more for health insurance.If all city employees paid what nonunion employees pay on average, the city would have saved more than $800,000 last year alone, Garman said.Union employees currently pay nothing per year for single coverage and $276 for employee contributions, Garman said."While we understand and appreciate the fact that employee groups bargained for these benefits in the past and we do not hold that against them, the time has come to seriously evaluate whether the taxpaying public should continue to shoulder these costs for the benefit of represented city employees," Garman wrote.A 2004 city study showed Decatur pays substantially more on average for city employees' health insurance than do Bloomington, Champaign, Danville, Normal, Quincy, Springfield and Urbana.

Affordable health coverage an option

A couple of months ago, I wrote an article about the purpose of health insurance and the reasons you should have it. The article also discussed the Health Savings Account option, which couples a high-deductible health plan with a tax-favored Health Savings Account bank account to help pay the deductible and other unreimbursed medical expenses.

Despite the importance of health insurance, a myriad of statistics that seem to come out almost daily in everything from newspapers to insurance publications indicate that between 40 million and 45 million people are uninsured in this great country of ours.

Pruned health-insurance plans advanced by House

Arizonans will have access to stripped-down health insurance plans if the Senate and the governor approve a House plan. The House voted 32-25 on March 13 to allow insurance companies to offer pruned health plans to individual policyholders and more small businesses. The vote came amid claims by supporters that many Arizonans don't purchase health insurance because the only options are unaffordable. House Bill 2757, dubbed by Rep. Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, as "mandate lite," would eliminate some of the coverages lawmakers previously said all policies had to include. The vote came as legislators are increasingly focused on how to get coverage for the perhaps 1.1 million Arizonans who do not have health insurance. .