Archive by Month - September, 2010

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Should Obama Use Executive Orders To Ban Health Insurance Plans From Increasing Rates?

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

Image: The U.S. Army under CC 3.0

In preparation for healthcare reform regulations that will end up cutting into their profits, insurers are sharply increasing rates while they still can. While Department of Health and Human Services head Kathleen Sebelius has criticized their opportunism–which allegedly goes beyond the actual rise of health care costs–right now, her words have no teeth.

The increases are lowering already shaky public support for the law. What can the Obama administration do? A consumer watchdog group is recommending that the President issue an executive order to freeze health insurance plans‘ premiums until the rate review provisions go into effect in the next plan year.

According to the Supreme Court, presidents are allowed to do so. However, taking that course of action would be politically risky–many already believe that his administration is taking too much control over the health insurance industry.

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Posted in Reform & Regulation | No Comments »

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Arizona Proposition Would Ban Affordable Health Insurance Mandate

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

The issue of healthcare reform is very controversial. Proponents admit that while the bill isn’t perfect, one of the most unpopular elements is necessary. Basically, in order to provide affordable health insurance without a public option or a national health service, private health insurers must be induced to accept the more popular regulations (such as accepting people with pre-existing conditions) by guaranteeing them a larger supply of healthy consumers, which is where the individual mandate comes in.

In November, Arizona voters will try to launch a challenge to that provision. Proposition 106 would write a ban against forcing residents to buy health coverage into the state constitution. Tea party groups believe that the Healthcare Freedom Act will inspire conservative voters to head to the polls, voting for Republican candidates at the same time. A similar proposition narrowly failed in 2008.

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Health Insurance Plans’ Autism Coverage Under Fire

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

Image: Bob Bobster under CC 3.0

Republicans running for Congress this year are touting their anti-Obamacare credentials. Nevada’s Sharron Angle is no different. Boosted by the tea party past a more moderate candidate in the GOP primary, she is going up against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in November. As one of the key architects behind the controversial healthcare reform law, Reid is in danger of losing his seat.

Angle is obviously against the individual coverage mandate, as well as health insurance plans being forced to cover certain conditions. She blames the latter for raising costs. Video from a speech last year on that issue has recently been released to controversy. In that speech, Angle railed against a state law that requires health insurers to cover early treatment for autism spectrum disorders. When she mentioned the word “autism”, she used air quotes, which some have interpreted as meaning that she doesn’t believe that autism is a legitimate condition that children’s health insurance should treat.

Not done offending people, Angle went on to say that maternity coverage should not be mandated, since she herself is done having children.

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Impact of Affordable Health Insurance Reform on Farming Families

Monday, September 27th, 2010

Image: AJay Tallam under CC 3.0

Although agriculture currently employs under 2% of American workers, farmers play a significant role in feeding the nation. How will affordable health insurance reform affect them?

For farming families, the impact is mixed.

On the positive side:

  • Health insurance exchanges will be created in 2014, which are meant to make prices more competitive for farmers and others.
  • A family of four that earns up to $88,000 will be eligible for subsidies to help them purchase health insurance. Most small farmers fall under this threshold.

Unfortunately, there is also bad news. Most significant is the individual mandate, which will require everyone to buy an individual health insurance plan. However, the annual penalty for not purchasing it is fairly minor.

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Can Healthcare Reform “Repeal and Replace” Promises Be Trusted?

Friday, September 24th, 2010

Image: Keven Law under CC 3.0

The Republican party is staunchly against the Obama administration’s healthcare reform law. So much so, that its politicians promise that if they regain the majority in Congress, one of their first tasks will be to repeal “Obamacare”. Then, they promise that they will replace it with a more moderate, business-friendly solution.

What they promote sounds like a good idea–retaining the popular measures, such as making it easier for people with pre-existing conditions to buy a health insurance plan; while dropping the potentially troublesome elements like the individual mandate.

However, history may make some skeptical of the GOP’s pledge. After helping to torpedo President Bill Clinton’s health insurance reform proposal in the early 1990s, they basically ignored the issue for over a decade of controlling the House of Representatives and the Senate. In the meantime, the issue became more pressing–and may need more drastic solutions than it did back then.

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Are Child-Only Health Insurance Plans Falling By The Wayside?

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

Image: Pink Sherbet Photography under CC 3.0

Several health insurers, including Aetna and Anthem Blue Cross, will soon stop selling dedicated health insurance plans to children. These plans often appeal to parents who believe they cannot afford health insurance for the entire family, but decide to sacrifice for the sake of their kids. Still, children’s health insurance is a relatively small market by itself.

They blame newly effective provisions of the healthcare reform law that prevent them from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, which means that those plans will no longer be cost-effective for them to offer.

Which states will lose this option? So far, they are:

  • California
  • Florida
  • Connecticut
  • Illinois
  • Virginia
  • Pennsylvania
  • Texas
  • Tennessee
  • Colorado
  • Arizona

Although there is a legitimate argument for the moral hazard of allowing adults with pre-existing conditions to forgo paying into the system when they are healthy and joining when they are sick, children have no choice in the matter. (The individual mandates that discourage this practice won’t go into effect until 2014–and may not survive a Supreme Court challenge.) Furthermore, unlike adults, children never contribute to their own health status by choice.

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Healthcare Reform Provisions and Obesity Treatment

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

Image: Combined Media under CC 3.0

Tomorrow, several of the earliest provisions of the healthcare reform law will go into effect. Many of these involve preventative care.

The paradox with a lot of health insurance plans is that they typically do not pay for medically supervised diets or nutritional counseling for the overweight and obese. (They may cover gastric bypass or other weight loss surgery, but some patients are not considered morbidly obese enough to be eligible for reimbursement.) However, they will cover the more expensive cost of treating related conditions like type 2 diabetes or sleep apnea when they are later developed.

The legislation looks to change that. Here is how it will change:

  • Recommended preventative care treatments are covered without co-payments or co-insurance percentages for policyholders, including behavioral counseling and obesity screening.
  • Public health initiatives will make calorie counts more visible, making it easier for people to eat healthily and lose/maintain their weight.
  • Comparative effectiveness research will be undertaken to determine if insurers will be required to cover gym memberships, therapy, or special meal programs.
  • An advisory group will look into the effectiveness and risks of weight loss drugs and surgery, possibly requiring coverage of those deemed more effective than harmful.

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Carter: Ted Kennedy Killed Affordable Health Insurance Reform

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

Image: Mitchell Weinstock under CC 3.0

Saying that the late Ted Kennedy stood in the way of comprehensive healthcare reform seems strange: the liberal Democrat took on that issue for decades before his death last year. But that’s what former President Jimmy Carter claims.

Specifically, Carter accuses Kennedy of shooting progressives’ cause in the foot because he opposed a Carter administration proposal in 1978. Kennedy supported a single-payer national health insurance system and considered it a civil right, similar to the “public option” touted in recent years. Labor unions also funded the Campaign for National Health Insurance, which convinced Kennedy to back out of a compromise proposal with Republican Gerald Ford in 1975 due to the potential for soon having a Democrat in office. However, Carter was more moderate than they expected.

In retrospect, it may have made more sense to accept the affordable health insurance reform Carter offered–which would have been effect for decades by now. Washington, D.C. has only become more conservative and polarized since then, and subsequent policy proposals were even more narrow.

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Is Your Health Insurance Plan Being Dropped?

Monday, September 20th, 2010

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If you’re insured through Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield or MVP Health Care, you may be caught in the middle of their shrinking their product lines. Like any business, they want to eliminate unpopular products–but is this an end run around a new New York health insurance law that forbids insurers from dropping entire products as a sneaky way of canceling the coverage of people with serious pre-existing conditions and high medical claims?

The insurers defend their actions as normal business practice, adding that a relatively small percentage of customers use the plans slated to be eliminated. Just 605 policyholders will be affected, most of them either group health insurance plans based on a company’s claim history or community-rated individual health insurance priced with a large pool. Those whose health insurance plan will be discontinued will be offered an alternative, though it remains to be seen if the terms are as appealing.

Excellus plans slated to be canceled will expire on January 1st, while MVP plans (which have rolling enrollment schedules) will be discontinued on October 1st or November 1st, depending on the product. The state’s Ian’s Law will take effect early next year.

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Census: Percentage of Americans With Health Insurance Plan Dropped

Friday, September 17th, 2010

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Since the Census Bureau began tracking the percentage of Americans who are insured in 1987, last year showed the lowest rate on record. 253.6 million reported having a health insurance plan in 2009, which doesn’t seem so bad until you find out that 255.1 million were insured last year.

The recession is largely to blame, because it caused hundreds of thousands of employees to lose jobs with health benefits. Supporters of healthcare reform will likely use this statistic as an argument for the necessity of the Obama administration’s legislation.

At the same time, Medicaid enrollment rose, along with the poverty rate.

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