Angelina Ortiz’s family income must not exceed $41,304 annually. If it does, she and her brother would no longer qualify for Colorado Childrens’ Health Plan Plus, and the family would be forced to pay $1200/month for Angelina’s lifesaving medications. Her condition? Asthma. The ubiquitous respiratory ailment that can range in severity from a minor tight-chested… Read more about Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
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Health Wonk Review – July 12, 2007
The Health Wonk Review is THE top health policy roundup in the blogosphere. It’s known for only including the best and brightest, and only the keenest observations of the health policy community. The collection of articles below represent the cream of the crop of recent entries in the ongoing US health care policy discussion. I’m… Read more about Health Wonk Review – July 12, 2007
Humana Says the Price is a Secret
Note: This is the fourth entry in my price transparency experiment. See the first entry here, the second entry here, the third entry here, and the fifth entry here. Jay has written several times over the last month about his lipoma surgery and the billing headache that it has become. When we got the bill… Read more about Humana Says the Price is a Secret
Enron Health Plan
With all the talk of universal health care lately, the most popular jab against it is to point out how inefficient the government is at running anything. Example: Katrina and FEMA. First of all, it’s been all to easy to point out incompetence in every government agency for the past 6 years. From Brown being… Read more about Enron Health Plan
I’m A Patriot – You’re A Terrorist
“Now with 50% more love for America“, over my med body played host to the Medical Grand Rounds this week. He did a great job! Keeping with the patriotism theme, I stumbled on a post from InsureBlog about Medical Terrorism. I thought Bob would be talking about the doctors that committed acts of terror in… Read more about I’m A Patriot – You’re A Terrorist
The Freedom of Individual Health Insurance
She said she realizes that the money they’ll be saving on their health insurance now is much greater than what she would have saved by having the group insurance through her employer for the 2 years she worked there. And the freedom it gave her and her husband is priceless.
Testimonials
We know we’re not perfect. Who is? And we want to constantly improve what we do and how we help you with your insurance needs. Consequently, getting honest testimonials and feedback from our customers is important to helping us serve you better. Most importantly, we don’t sell your name or email address. (privacy policy) During… Read more about Testimonials
I Got the Bill
Note: This is the third entry in my experiment with price transparency in the US health care system. See the first entry here, the second entry here, the fourth entry here, and the fifth entry here. I finally got the bill for the surgery (pdf). It was quite high compared to the estimate I received…. Read more about I Got the Bill
It’s All About Inspiration
Grand Rounds is up at the Wandering Visitor. She made the theme “things that inspire you”. She got over 3 dozen posts. I think you’ll find the inspiration to read what medbloggers find inspiring themselves. Enjoy!
What is a Copay?
First of all, a plan with copays is usually going to be a waste of money. A copay is a dollar amount the health insurance company has specified that you’ll pay for either doctors visits or prescription drugs. A typical plan will have $25 doctors visit copays and $15 copays for generic Rx and $30… Read more about What is a Copay?
Cavalcade of Risk
Julie of the Workers Comp Insider has put together a good collection of risk related posts in the latest edition of the Cavalcade of Risk. Check it out…
Diabetes – An Ounce of Prevention
“We are spending as much on diabetes as we are on the entire Department of Education.” That statement, from Dana Haza, a senior director for the National Changing Diabetes Program (NCDP) is an eye-opener. The numbers are staggering. 12% of the government health-care budget in 2005 was spent on treating diabetes. And a recent study found… Read more about Diabetes – An Ounce of Prevention
Anthem Blue Cross Leads The Way
Over the past couple years, I’ve made a push to eliminate bigotry from the Colorado health insurance market. My main focus has been to persuade Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Colorado into making those positive changes first. They’ve got the biggest market share of the Colorado individual and small group health insurance markets, so… Read more about Anthem Blue Cross Leads The Way
Health Wonk Review at Health Business Blog
You’ll find an interesting Health Wonk Review over at the Health Business Blog. I enjoyed the article from Michael Cannon at Cato@Liberty: Michael was able to negotiate 50% off his MRI bill. He had to do it because he has a high deductible HSA qualified health insurance plan and was paying out of pocket. This… Read more about Health Wonk Review at Health Business Blog
Colorado Health Insurance and Bariatric Surgery
For the last few days, I’ve been pondering how I feel about health insurance paying for gastric bypass surgery. My first reaction is ‘no way!’ I don’t want to be subsidizing the cost of this surgery with my health insurance premiums. I tend to take a very hard-line approach to the current obesity crisis. It’s… Read more about Colorado Health Insurance and Bariatric Surgery
Individual Health Insurance Jitters
Yesterday I was talking with a friend about what we would do if we had tons of money. One of those pie in the sky conversations that makes you thing about what’s important in life. Neither one of us is a big shopper – we’re both pretty frugal and didn’t think that would change much. … Read more about Individual Health Insurance Jitters
Cavalcade of Risk – Anniversary Edition
Congratulations to Hank Stern of InsureBlog for completing his first year with the Cavalcade of Risk. Hank usually hunts for extra risk related blogs to include in each edition, but for the anniversary edition he decided to stick with just us “regulars”. That was still enough to get 15 top quality posts. It was interesting… Read more about Cavalcade of Risk – Anniversary Edition
Even More Thoughts On Pregnancy Coverage
Over the past few weeks, I’ve written here and here about paying for pregnancy. I think that my ideas are sound, but Jay’s post yesterday made me rethink some of my plan. The program I envisioned would separate maternity care from health insurance, and would pay for pregnancy using tax money combined with contributions from… Read more about Even More Thoughts On Pregnancy Coverage
Scum
It’s easy to see how people can be against socialized medicine, or even an expansion of Medicaid. The more people you hear about like “Ashley” on Yahoo Answers, the more it seems like you’re just subsidizing their irresponsibility. She asks… Hey all. Just the other day I went to apply for Medicaid. I live in… Read more about Scum
Grand Rounds
Inside Surgery hosts this weeks Grand Rounds. It was a fitting blog post to include my article about how hard it is to get pricing transparency on a surgery if you’ve got an HSA qualified plan in Colorado.
IRS Announces 2008 COLA Amounts for HSAs
The Internal Revenue Service has announced the 2008 cost of living adjustments (COLAs) for high deductible health plans (HDHPs) that are offered in conjunction with health savings accounts (HSAs). The minimum required annual deductibles for HDHPs will remain unchanged in 2008. However, the annual contribution limits and the maximum out-of-pocket limits will be raised. For… Read more about IRS Announces 2008 COLA Amounts for HSAs
More Incompetence
Keeping with the status quo of his administration, President Bush has chosen to nominate an extremely unqualified buddy of his to be the next Surgeon General, Dr. James Holsinger. Holsinger was the Chief Medical Director at the Department of Veterans Affairs under George Bush Sr. Under his watch, the VA was found to be incompetent… Read more about More Incompetence
Still No Transparency
Note: This is the second entry in this nightmare to get some transparency on a simple lipoma removal surgery. See the first entry here, and the third entry here. I found a dermatologist that could remove my lipoma (if you haven’t done so already – read part 1) in her office (Boulder Valley Center for… Read more about Still No Transparency
Memorial Day Grand Rounds
Colin at Medskool hosted a very well organized and visually attractive Grand Rounds. With about 50 articles, there is plenty of good reading to be done about the medical blogosphere.
Pregnancy Expenses Revisited
I recently wrote a post about paying for pregnancy. A comment from a reader caught my attention and I felt that it deserved a mention and a few more of my thoughts on the matter. The problem with having a pool of money from all insurance companies to pay for pregnancy (or anything else) is… Read more about Pregnancy Expenses Revisited