[…] Even when policies are free or very low cost (such as Medicaid or Child Health Plan Plus), a significant number of eligible individuals continue to go without coverage, for a myriad of reasons. So it stands to reason that plenty of uninsured people who are eligible for GettingUsCovered won’t apply. Some likely aren’t aware of the availability, and many others simply can’t afford to pay the premiums. But apparently Colorado is enrolling people at a fairly fast pace – as of November 1, there were 20 states that had fewer than 50 people enrolled in their newly-created high risk pools.
Thanksgiving Cavalcade Of Risk
Welcome to the Thanksgiving Cavalcade. It’s an exciting time to be hosting because risk is a hot topic right now. Insurance and healthcare risk, as well as monetary policy and finance, etc […]
Funding Cover Colorado
For nearly two decades, Cover Colorado has been providing health insurance to people in Colorado who don’t have access to group health insurance coverage and have pre-existing conditions the make them uninsurable (or unable to get coverage without exclusion riders or rate increases that put their premium above that offered by Cover Colorado) in the individual health insurance market. While we’re lucky to have such a resource, it doesn’t come cheap […]
Diabetes Accounts For Nearly A Quarter Of US Hospital Costs
Diabetes now accounts for nearly a quarter of all hospital spending in the US – about $83 billion a year in hospital fees. The report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality was released in August, but I just came across it today, and the details are staggering. The vast majority – 95% – of all diabetes cases are Type 2 diabetes, which is nearly always caused by poor diet and/or a sedentary lifestyle. In addition, 70% of hospital stays for diabetics are paid for by government health insurance: 60% by Medicare and 10% by Medicaid. […]
Health Reform Not Having Much Impact On Colorado Premiums
Although the increases we’ve seen this year are similar to what we’ve seen over the last several years, there have been more questions since the PPACA was signed into law in March about whether federal health care reform is the driving factor for this year’s increases. To clarify, the Colorado Division of Insurance has released a statement noting that federal health reform is responsible for less than 5% of the total health insurance premium increase in Colorado this year. […]
Workers’ Comp Rates In Colorado Among The Lowest In The Nation
[…] We work with individual health insurance, so my knowledge of workers’ comp issues are generally limited to what I read on Julie’s blog. But I find it interesting that workers’ comp is relatively inexpensive here, given that our health insurance premiums put us right in the middle of the national ranking in 2009, and group health insurance premiums here are currently rising faster than the national average.
Group Premiums In Colorado Increasing Faster Than National Average
A survey conducted by the Lockton Benefit Group found that premiums for employer-sponsored group health insurance policies in Colorado were increasing by an average of 14.4% for 2011, which was “significantly higher than reported nationally.” This was the tenth year in a row that premiums saw double digit increases, but the current increase is the largest in five years, and most employers surveyed (more than 73%) plan to make plan changes or increase employee contributions to offset the large rate increases. […]
How The Colorado Division Of Insurance Reviews Rate Filings
[…] The Division of Insurance has recently released an extensive FAQ page detailing how the review process works. The page includes data about health insurance premiums in Colorado, how they compare with the rest of the country, and specifics about how the Division of Insurance reviews rate increase proposals from carriers. […]
Funding Health Care Reform
For months now, one of the main arguments against the PPACA is that it doesn’t address health care costs or provide a means to pay for the reforms that it includes. Opponents of the reform law have used the money argument to drum up support for their cause, and – along with opposition to the individual mandate requiring everyone to have health insurance starting in 2014 – it remains one of the first things that people will mention when asked why they oppose the PPACA. […]
High Risk Pool Eligibility
[…] There is another significant difference between Cover Colorado and GettingUsCovered, in terms of eligibility. Both plans allow eligibility for applicants who have one of several specific medical conditions, and both plans accept applicants who have either been declined by a private insurance company or offered coverage with a pre-existing condition exclusion. But while Cover Colorado also allows people to enroll if they have been offered a private policy with a rate that is higher than a comparable Cover Colorado plan, GettingUsCovered does not allow this option. […]
Some Mini-Med Policies Are Better Than Others
This week’s Grand Rounds included an article by David Williams about mini-med plans that I thought was worth sharing. David explains that although he’s not a fan of mini-med policies, sometimes they are indeed better than nothing. Mini-med policies come in all shapes and sizes, and David’s article describes policies with $25,000 or $50,000 benefit maximums… a far cry from the $2,000 maximum policies that I wrote about earlier this month. […]
Mega And Mid-West Being Investigated Again
A west coast legal firm has launched an investigation into the market conduct of Mega Life and Health Insurance Company and Mid-West National Life Insurance Company. Their parent company, HealthMarkets, Inc., is also being investigated, along with the two shareholders (Blackstone Group, L.P. and Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.) who purchased HealthMarkets in 2006 for $850 million. […]
The Wisdom Of Evidence Based Medicine
David mentioned that “…ideologues would call this rationing.” I couldn’t agree more, and I think that research like this is the best defense against those who criticize any sort of evidence-based medicine that results in less treatment – but better or equally good outcomes. The word rationing has a bit of a negative connotation in our culture. It conjures up images of people standing in line for hours to get a loaf of bread, or only being allowed to buy five gallons of gasoline at the pump. It makes us think of hardship and having to do without things that we need. I believe that people who are opposed to scientific, evidence-based medicine are capitalizing on the public’s general dislike of the concept of rationing […]
NAIC Considering Transitional Period For New MLR Requirements
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners is meeting this week to figure out the specifics of how the new medical loss ratio (MLR) rules should be implemented, and they’ll be voting on the issue tomorrow. Basically, health reform law calls for health insurance carriers to be spending 80 – 85% of premium dollars on medical care as of January 1, 2011. But the insurance industry would prefer to see the increased MLRs phased in gradually. They say that they can meet the new MLR requirements over the next few years, but that trying to do so all at once by the first of the year will only serve to drive some carriers out of business entirely. […]
Baseless Fear Mongering Hurts The Healthcare Reform Debate
[…] There’s nothing wrong with being opposed to all or part of the health care reform law. However, it’s not factual to call the PPACA “socialism”. It’s does a disservice to voters to say that the reform law contains “death panels”. It’s not factual to say that patients will have to go to a bureaucrat before seeing his or her doctor. Spreading this sort of misinformation is truly harmful to the debate. Rather than discussing the actual facts of the law and searching for sensible solutions and compromises, fear-mongering sound bites with no basis in reality only serve to get people riled up.
Maternity Coverage In The Individual Health Insurance Market
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce released a memorandum this week detailing the practices of the four largest private health insurance carriers (Aetna, Humana, UnitedHealth Group and Wellpoint) regarding maternity coverage on individual policies. For anyone who is familiar with the individual health insurance market, the details of the memo will come as no surprise. But since the majority of Americans are covered by group health insurance plans that cover maternity just like any other claim, the details of how maternity coverage works in the individual market may be eye-opening for a lot of people. […]
A Compromise That Makes Sense For Child-Only Policies
[…] Even with guaranteed issue open enrollment periods for child only policies, insurers would definitely be taking on an increased risk compared with what they had when all individual policies were medically underwritten. If insurers could be allowed to continue to accept healthy kids (who present less of a financial risk to the carriers) throughout the year, this would help to offset the losses that they would incur by insuring the unhealthy kids who enroll during the open enrollment period. Regardless of whether that’s in line with the “language and intent” of the PPACA, it makes sense in the real world.
Wal-Mart To Offer HRA For Employees
[…] The extra $1000 per worker that Wal-Mart is planning to contribute to the HRAs will definitely help employees to offset routine costs, and will hopefully encourage more of them to enroll in the company’s health insurance policy. But it will still be a struggle for many families to come up with the rest of the high deductible in the event of a serious illness or injury, if the family relies on wages from Wal-Mart to cover all of their living expenses.
Mini-Med Plans Don’t Really Help Workers
[…] HHS wants to protect employees from losing their mini-med plans, and has issued the waivers in order to help those employees keep their policies in place. But I wonder if that’s actually the best thing for the workers involved? Some of the policies in question might be better plans that have annual limits nearly as high as the minimum required by the PPACA. But is it really beneficial to workers if we help them keep policies with $2000 annual caps?
The Perils Of Not Having An Individual Mandate
[…] Are we comfortable with allowing emergency services providers to turn away patients who are uninsured and cannot pay upfront for their care? If we are not, then the rest of us are paying for their care (indirectly, through higher health insurance premiums). And if we are, we find ourselves right back in the debate about whether it’s ok for firefighters to watch a house burn to the ground because the homeowner didn’t pay his fire protection fee. It seems that we all like having choices until we make the wrong choice one day.
Opposing Viewpoints On Amendment 63 In Colorado
Voters in Colorado will decide the fate of Amendment 63 next month, and the issue is definitely one of the more divisive ones on our ballot this year. The Denver Post ran a couple of editorials over the weekend that address both sides of the debate, and they’re both worth reading. Bob Semro, a policy analyst with the Bell Policy Center, explains why Amendment 63 is a bad idea, while Jon Caldera and Linda Gorman, both with the Independence Institute, detail the virtues of Amendment 63. […]
Narrow Provider Networks Not Likely To Please Patients
[…] As David pointed out, there’s also likely to be frustration for patients as providers move in and out of networks. This can happen regardless of the size of a network, but if networks are purposely kept small, it’s more likely to happen. Patients tend to be wary of having to find new doctors, and having to do so simply because of network changes isn’t likely to make people happy. Hopefully the idea of narrow provider networks won’t become a widespread trend with employers, medical providers, or health insurance carriers.
Regulators And Insurers Still Working On Child-Only Coverage Issue
[…] So far, none of the carriers who had backed out of the child-only market have commented on whether the open enrollment periods might make them change their minds, but AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans) has said that they are continuing to work with regulators to try to find solutions that would make the child-only market feasible for insurers in the future.
Very Few Real Estate Transactions Will Be Impacted By New Medicare Tax
[…] One of the rumors that has been circulating via email lately proclaims that the PPACA includes a 3.8% tax on all real estate transactions. This is simply not true. […] Most houses do not sell for profits of anywhere near the capital gains threshold. And most families don’t qualify as high income households. So most real estate transactions will not be impacted in any way by the new Medicare tax.
Colorado Division Of Insurance Still Reviewing Rates
We mentioned last week that the Colorado Division of Insurance had not yet approved rates past 9/23 for several carriers, and unfortunately, that is still the situation. For carriers that allow any effective date, quotes can still be generated for 9/22, but carriers that only allow 1st and 15th of the month effective dates are unable to quote new policies now (and have been since 9/15) if their rates have not been approved. This is causing a bit of a traffic jam for people who are searching for a new individual health insurance policy right now. […]