| Singlepayer.com is our site of the day
The National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) and the California Nurses Association (CAN) have created a website, singlepayer.com that has all sorts of information about health care in California and what a “Medicare for all" system would be like for Californians. There's a ton of information here and on this single page you can read all sorts of news coverage on health care, read up on California and national legislation, take specific useful steps to contact your legislator, contact the press, tell your healthcare story, and do something about this important issue that will be front and center in Sacramento for the remainder of this year's legislative session. You can also watch an innovative series of webcasts that lets patients tell their own stories. This online series exposes the hidden, everyday tragedies of a healthcare system run by insurance companies who make money by denying care--not by providing it.
A few questions about pre-existing conditions
If I buy a Medigap policy this summer when I become eligible for Medicare, will I have to wait for my pre-existing conditions to be covered? A: If you buy your Medigap policy during your Medigap open enrollment period, which is the six-month period following the eligibility date on your Medicare card, then you may not have a waiting period. It depends on whether you had at least six months of creditable health insurance coverage immediately prior to the open enrollment period month in which you want to buy the Medigap policy. If you had less than six months of creditable coverage, this waiting period will be reduced by the number of months that you did have creditable coverage. Creditable coverage is generally any other health coverage you had immediately prior to applying for a Medigap policy.
Health Benefits Direct Announces Addition of Aetna Coverage to ...
RADNOR, PA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- March 12, 2007 -- Health Benefits Direct Corporation (OTCBB: HBDT), a leading innovator in the direct marketing and distribution of a wide range of health and life insurance products to individuals, today announced that Aetna has joined Health Benefits Direct's online insurance portal as an official health insurance carrier partner. The addition of this leading provider expands the company's consumer selection to include coverage availability from four of the largest major medical insurance carriers in the nation. "Selective carrier mix expansion is a key component of our organic growth plan, and this addition marks a significant achievement in the ongoing development of our interactive online insurance agency," said Alvin H. Clemens, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Health Benefits Direct.
Lawmakers Seek Options As Children's Health Insurance Plan Set to ...
(CNSNews.com) - Enacted 10 years ago, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which targets low income families who do not qualify for Medicaid, is set to expire this year, and lawmakers are exploring ways to help insure those still not covered.
"We can say without equivocation that [with SCHIP] we have made a contribution to ensuring that children have better coverage and more access to healthcare than they had before," former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.
Daschle noted that "21.6 million children today are provided coverage through either the Medicaid program or the SCHIP program. We find that there [are] approximately 43 million children who are covered by the insurance provided through family employers.
Florida Health Insurance Web Advises Insurance Consultant for ...
Prices of health insurance are at record high levels while actual benefits are getting smaller. Florida Health Insurance web advices use of professional insurance consultants to avoid over-inflated rates on individual health insurance policies. (PRWEB) March 13, 2007 -- Internet insurance portal, Florida Health Insurance Web, reports nearly three million Floridians without individual health insurance coverage. That's 18% of the state's population. Health related bankruptcy is on the rise - the leading cause of bankruptcy today. Every Floridian without health insurance coverage is just one illness away from financial ruin. Florida Health Insurance Web, www.FloridaHealthInsuranceWeb.com, advises consulting an online source such as its service, before choosing any health insurance policy.
Individual Health Insurance Overpriced - Insurance Consultant Needed
Florida Health Insurance Consultants are recommended for anyone buying health insurance. Recent polls taken by the Wall Street Journal said, "18 percent of American's do not have health insurance coverage" of any kind. 40% of those polled did not know the difference between a PPO and an HMO. Finding affordable health insurance has never been easy; it is not 'one size fits all.' Now, with the increases in policy rates, hardly anyone in Florida can 'afford' to stay healthy. Depending on your current state of health, budget and individual needs, the best insurance for you may be far different than the best insurance for a friend or another family member. What can you do protect your family? Contact an expert insurance consultant and talk to them about your needs. They can show all available policies, not just one policy from one carrier.
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL ...
And, finally, if you're interested in controlling health care costs and if you want to make sure health care is available, elect people who will vote for medical liability reform -- there are too many lawsuits running too many good doctors out of practice in America. (Applause.) I'm looking forward to working with the United States Congress on an idea that we put forward that will make private health insurance more affordable and more accessible to more of our citizens. And that is to change the tax code. I believe strongly that we ought to create a standard tax deduction for health insurance like the standard tax deduction for dependents. A family with health insurance would get a $15,000 deduction from incoming payroll taxes, whether they buy coverage on their own or get it from their employer.
House Approves Children's Insurance Bill
The Texas House passed a bill Tuesday that would revoke changes made to the Children's Health Insurance Program in 2003, when thousands of children lost their coverage. The bill will go to the Senate. Currently, a family qualifies based on gross income and must reapply for coverage every six months. After applying, a child must wait 90 days before getting enrolled. "The income we're talking about is maximum right around $40,000 for a family of four," said Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston. "What this bill will do is pick up an additional 100,000 kids and put them back on the roll." Lawmakers want to change CHIP to the way it was before 2003, when a family only had to reapply every 12 months. There would be no waiting period for children, and eligibility was based on net income, which is how much the family earned minus child care and work-related expenses.
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.
Blue Cross Of California Health Insurance - Clear Answers To Tough ...
Northridge, California (FV Newswire) - Blue Cross of California health insurance provides clear answers to tough questions. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently proposed a plan to provide affordable health insurance to everyone in the state under the age of 18. The ultimate goal, according to Chuck Mondrus of American Health Insurance / Blue Cross California, is for everyone in California to have affordable health insurance.
"Blue Cross California," Mondrus adds, "shares the Governor's concern with California's cost and coverage challenges, and we view many components of the Governor's proposal as very positive. Theoretically, if everyone is insured, the cost of insurance would be less on a per-person basis."
He adds that, until a finished proposal exists, it's impossible to know the legislation's real impact.
Johnson and Miller: Invest in kids' health
Sometimes a dollar is just a dollar, but in the case of the Children?s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), one dollar equals $3.64. The fiscally responsible approach to funding a program in Texas should include the overall impact on the taxpayer at local, state and federal levels. For example, for each state dollar invested in CHIP, Texas receives $2.64 in federal matching funds (which come, of course, from Texas taxpayers). And the reverse is true — if we do not put up the dollar, we actually lose our $2.64 to other states. So far, Texas has forfeited more than $900 million in Texas federal matching funds by not fully funding CHIP. These funds have been returned to the U.S. Treasury and spent by other states. Most recently, the state sought to ?save? money in 2003 by removing 180,000 children from CHIP coverage.
State plan must cover just the basic services
The Oregon Legislature is considering two significant health care reform proposals. Senate Bill 27 and Senate Bill 329 both aim to reduce the number of Oregonians who have no health insurance. Both warrant serious study. The Oregon Office for Health Policy and Research puts the number of Oregonians who, in 2006, did not have health insurance at 575,000, or 15.6 percent of the state population. Who are these uninsured? • Approximately 182,000 of the uninsured have incomes of 2 1/2 times the federal poverty level or less. The health policy office concludes that these people can't afford to purchase health insurance. The Oregon Health Plan, the state's system of Medicaid coverage, essentially uses the federal poverty level as the cutoff point for eligibility. • Approximately 393,000, or 10.7 percent of the state's population, have incomes greater than 2 1/2 times the federal poverty level.
Insurance associations falling by the wayside
A major source of health insurance for people who work for themselves has all but disappeared, casting thousands of contractors, freelancers and solo practitioners into the ranks of the uninsured with little hope of obtaining new coverage. Health plans offered by professional associations were once safe havens for millions of people who couldn't obtain coverage anywhere else. But, as medical costs have soared, groups representing professions as varied as law and golf have been forced to stop offering the benefit or been dropped by insurers. More than 8,000 California Realtors and their families could be next if Blue Shield of California succeeds with its plan to cancel their association health coverage. "It's a real stab in the heart," said Marcy Garber, 62, a Los Angeles real estate agent whose history of breast cancer makes her an almost-certain reject if she seeks similar coverage on her own.
AM Best Launches New Online Consumer Insurance Information Center
OLDWICK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 5, 2007--A.M. Best Co. has launched Best's Consumer Insurance Information Center, an online resource designed to inform consumers about the various insurance options available to them, and to demonstrate the importance of an insurer's Best's Financial Strength Rating in determining how likely the company is to fulfill its financial obligations to policyholders. Overview information on life insurance and annuities, health and accident insurance, and auto, home and personal property insurance is currently available in this Center. Visitors can also expect to find answers to basic questions that may arise when deciding on the line of coverage that would best suit their needs, such as: "What does it protect against?" "Who needs it?" and "When should I buy it?"
This Center features a convenient tool that lets users search for an insurer and view its Best's Rating, basic contact information and its top five lines and states of business (by direct premiums written).
Employer-built ‘wellness’ plans
How much does your company spend on health insurance, and what does it get in return? How would you like to pay $309 per employee per month for a plan with only a $750 deductible, free annual checkups and immunizations, and 90-percent coverage for hospitalizations? If that sounds like an employers dream, its because employers, for the most part, were the ones who put it together, with guidance from Health Insurance Commissioner Christopher F. Kollers office and plenty of feedback from insurers. So when a reporter asked Donald R. Nokes, president of NetCenergy LLC and one of the plans architects, whether he planned to offer this coverage next year, he answered promptly: Oh, absolutely! The new wellness health plans unveiled by Koller last week, which are expected to be available to groups of up to 50 by Oct.
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