[…] Chances are, if you have a claim on your home or auto policy, it will be because of a one-time incident like a fire or a car accident. That can be the case with a health claim too, of course, but many times a large claim on a health insurance policy can be the result of a chronic condition or one that will need extensive long-term treatment. A person might have health insurance at the start of the ordeal, but may lose coverage as time goes on […]
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Is High Risk Pool Eligibility Guideline Hampering Enrollment?
[…] In terms of underwriting actions for less serious conditions (those that don’t result in a decline), GettingUsCovered only takes people who have been offered a policy with an exclusion rider… which most carriers don’t do anymore. Perhaps this is resulting in GettingUsCovered being comprised mostly of members who have a condition that would result in a decline in the individual market, while CoverColorado has those members as well as members who have less serious conditions that simply result in a higher-priced policy in the individual market.
Tips For Sorting Through Medigap Advertising
[…] I would add that the advertising tactics Trudy mentions also apply to regular health insurance plans too – not just those related to Medicare. Unfortunately, health insurance advertising can sometimes get a bit murky. If in doubt, always ask for more details or get a second opinion… and as with most things, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is (there’s no such thing as comprehensive individual health insurance for $150/month for a family of four with no deductible and all pre-existing conditions covered).
Grand Rounds Vol. 7 No. 40
Welcome to Grand Rounds! It’s the third time we’ve hosted Grand Rounds at the Colorado Health Insurance Insider and we’re honored to be hosting again. It was a pleasure to read so many great articles for this edition. Since our blog tends to focus on health care policy and reform, I’m starting things off with the posts that pertain to that topic. Enjoy!
PVHS and UCH Begin Process Of Creating A Joint Hospital System
[…] The merger is expected to provide numerous benefits for both hospital systems, and will presumably make for lower total operating/administrative costs than they would have if they weren’t working together. As health care costs continue to climb, this should help both hospitals continue to provide quality care to their patients. It’s also reasonable to assume that the merger will be beneficial for UCH and PVHS patients, since access to both hospital system’s strengths will likely be available to patients in both Denver and Northern Colorado. […]
Support For Hospital Fees Varies From One State To Another
[…] This is a good example of how similar legislation does not necessarily have the same support or outcomes in different states. That’s not to say that the Health Care Affordability Act is universally supported in Colorado – it’s not. But it’s working relatively well as a vehicle to fund Medicaid here and to support Colorado hospitals that treat a large number of uninsured patients.
Call For Grand Rounds Submissions
We’re honored to be hosting Grand Rounds next week, on June 28th. Please send me your medical/health care posts by 8pm mountain time on Sunday, the 26th. No theme this week – just pick your favorite recent post. Submissions can be emailed to me at louisen78 [at] gmail [dot] com. I look forward to reading your articles!
Biased Language In Employer Health Insurance Survey
[…] Overall, the survey is very thorough, the questions are mostly objective, and the data obtained from 1300 employers is no doubt a useful barometer of current employer attitudes towards health care reform. But I imagine that if the sentence about assuming that exchanges will make individual health insurance easy and affordable had not been included, the number of employers who said that they plan to drop their group plans might not have been so high. Time will tell.
Rate Review Process Does Not Keep Premiums Artificially Low
[…] If the rates are justified, they’ll likely be approved – even if the amount of the increase is distastefully large. The DOI is not trying to keep premiums artificially low or force carriers to cut out legitimate claims expenses. Having rates approved by the DOI does not mean that the people of Colorado get smaller-than-average premium increases. Rather, it means that although our rate increases are sometimes substantial, we know that those rates are justified as a reflection of increasing claims costs.
Aetna Purchasing Genworth’s Medigap Business
The first of the Baby Boomers turn 65 this year, and health insurance carriers are paying attention. Aetna has agreed to purchase Genworth’s Medicare supplement business for $290 million. Going forward, Aetna expects to post yearly gains from the Medicare supplement (also known as Medigap) business. This makes sense given that the Baby Boomers will be flooding into the Medicare (and Medicare supplement) system over the next two decades. […]
Expanding Eligibility For Federally Administered High Risk Pool Coverage
[…] The 27 states (including Colorado) that administer their own PCIPs have been notified by HHS that they can modify their programs in a similar manner. As of this morning, the GettingUSCovered website still has the same eligibility guidelines that it has always had: a letter from a private carrier stating that the applicant has been declined, or approved with an exclusion on a pre-existing condition. […]
Surprising Effect Of More PCPs On Healthcare Costs
[…] The Dartmouth study results might seem counter-intuitive, since we often assume that as long as people are getting regular care by a PCP, they will be more able to avoid expensive hospitalizations. That appears to be true, but the lower cost office visits and outpatient treatments add up faster than one might expect, and would actually exceed the cost of the hospitalizations that they would prevent. […]
Governor Hickenlooper Vetoes Bill To Charge Premiums For CHP+
[…] Even if parents with kids in CHP+ do smoke and buy lottery tickets at a higher rate than parents with private health insurance, what’s to make us think that they would all of a sudden stop spending money on those things and instead pay premiums for CHP+? Is our goal to punish those parents for what better-off families view as poor choices, or is the goal to make sure that as many kids as possible have health insurance? If it’s the latter, then the point made by Senator Brophy is irrelevant.
Medicare Trustees Report Not So Gloomy
[…] One way or another, we need to seek solutions that will enable Medicare to pay the 10% shortfall that is currently predicted for a decade from now. That can be accomplished by cutting costs, increasing revenues, or both. But we don’t need to start from scratch and overhaul the entire system, especially with the improvements that the PPACA has already created.
Medicare and Prescription Coverage
[…] If the government can tell the health insurance carriers that no more than 15 – 20% of premium dollars can be spent on administrative expenses, including profits, why can’t similar guidelines be enacted for the pharmaceutical industry? Perhaps then we wouldn’t need to worry as much about who is going to pay the cost of prescription drugs for seniors. And maybe individual health insurance policies could start covering prescriptions with basic copays again.
Health Care Reform In The 2011 Colorado Legislative Session
The Colorado legislative session that wrapped up this month was a busy one for Colorado-specific health care reform. Despite a few bumps in the road, SB200 passed, which means that Colorado is now on its way to creating a health insurance exchange that will address the particular needs of individuals and small businesses in the state. Although this bill was controversial simply because the whole idea of exchanges is too closely tied with the PPACA […]
Handling Income And Job Fluctuations Under The PPACA
[…] There’s no simple answer to all of this. We’re trying to create a somewhat universal health insurance system based on a conglomeration of government-run health insurance, private coverage from hundreds of carriers, eligibility for coverage that is tied to employment and state of residence, and also based on income levels… of course it’s going to get complicated. Hopefully the suggestions raised by this report will help to guide regulations that will ensure health insurance coverage that is as gap-free as possible for most Americans.
IRS 2012 HSA Contribution Limits
The IRS announced that the contribution limit for an individual would increase by $50 in 2012, from $3,050 to $3,100. The family contribution limit is increasing from $6,150 to $6,250 (+$100).
The maximum annual out-of-pocket increased as well. The individual out of pocket maximum is going from $5,950 to $6,050. The family out of pocket maximum is increasing from $11,900 to $12,100.
The minimum deductible on an HSA qualified plan remained the same, $1,200 for individuals and $2,400 for families.
For more details about HSAs and HSA qualified plans, visit our HSA page.
A Blurry Line Between Advertising And Journalism
[…] Posts like this are good to keep in mind whenever we read stories in the media regarding new technology in healthcare, recommendations for medical treatment, and cutting-edge pharmaceuticals. Is the article truly research-based journalism, or is it a press release in disguise? Was the magazine/newspaper/website paid to run the article, or did the author receive an incentive to write the article in a particular fashion? […]
Uninsured Americans Virtually Unable To Pay For Hospitalizations
[…] A new report from HHS paints a pretty bleak picture of the ability of uninsured Americans to pay for their own medical care. Looking at all uninsured families in the US, the median amount of savings is $20 (the study considered only assets that could be easily liquidated: bank accounts, stocks, bonds, retirement accounts, CDs, money market accounts, and mutual funds). That won’t go far when it comes to paying for a hospital bill. Even uninsured families at the high end of the asset scale had an average of less than $13,000 in financial assets. […]
The Future Of PCP Availability For Medicare Beneficiaries
[…] He tackles the question of whether Medicare beneficiaries have to wait longer than privately insured patients for a routine appointment, and finds that they do not. In fact, it appears that the opposite is true, with more privately insured patients reporting that they had to wait longer than they wanted to get an appointment (although most insureds, regardless of whether they had Medicare or private health insurance, were able to get appointments within the time frame they wanted).[…]
Federal House Votes To Defund Health Insurance Exchanges
[…] One of the provisions of the PPACA is for the federal government to assist the states in funding the creation of health insurance exchanges. In a largely symbolic vote, the US House of Representatives voted last week to block that funding. HR1213 would prevent the federal government from spending money to help the states set up their own health insurance exchanges. It passed in the Republican-dominated House, but […]
DOI Report On Small Group Coverage In Colorado
The Colorado Division of Insurance recently released the 2010 small group market report. The number of employers in Colorado offering small group health insurance dropped by 10% compared with 2009, and the number of Colorado residents with small group health insurance coverage dropped by 7%. The report contains comprehensive data on the availability of coverage, carriers in the small group market, pricing, and how the rating flexibility laws have impacted the market. […]
CHP+ Premiums Will Result In More Uninsured Kids
[…] However, the real world is not always ideal. The Post editorial makes some very good points, and I don’t doubt that if CPH+ moves to a monthly premium system this summer, there will be some kids who lose their coverage, and fewer children will enroll in the future compared with how many would have enrolled if monthly premiums were not part of the deal. […]
Child-Only Plans Returning To Colorado
[…] But presumably if the child is eligible for coverage through a parent’s employer, individual health insurance carriers would not be required to offer the child a child-only policy. As we’ve noted in the past, child-only policies represent a very small fraction of the individual health insurance market, but within the child-only market, it would seem that there are a lot of children who are also eligible for other creditable coverage (albeit more expensive coverage…). It will be interesting to see if this becomes an issue once all the carriers return to the child-only market. […]