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You are here: Home / Archives for Individual/Family Health

Individual/Family Health

Health Insurance Does Not Always Prevent Medical Debt

July 6, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] 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 […]

Filed Under: Group Health, HSA, Individual/Family Health

Is High Risk Pool Eligibility Guideline Hampering Enrollment?

July 5, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] 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.

Filed Under: Health Insurance Reform, Individual/Family Health

Call For Grand Rounds Submissions

June 22, 2011 By Louise Norris

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!

Filed Under: Individual/Family Health

Biased Language In Employer Health Insurance Survey

June 21, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] 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.

Filed Under: Group Health, Health Care Goodies, Health Care Reform, Individual/Family Health

Hot Colorado Sunset

Rate Review Process Does Not Keep Premiums Artificially Low

June 16, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] 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.

Filed Under: Anthem Blue Cross, Humana, Individual/Family Health

Expanding Eligibility For Federally Administered High Risk Pool Coverage

June 8, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] 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. […]

Filed Under: Health Care Reform, Health Insurance Reform, Individual/Family Health

Handling Income And Job Fluctuations Under The PPACA

May 20, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] 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.

Filed Under: Group Health, Health Care Goodies, Health Care Reform, Health Insurance Reform, Individual/Family Health

DOI Report On Small Group Coverage In Colorado

May 9, 2011 By Louise Norris

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. […]

Filed Under: Group Health, HRA, Individual/Family Health

CHP+ Premiums Will Result In More Uninsured Kids

May 4, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] 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. […]

Filed Under: Group Health, Health Care Goodies, HSA, Individual/Family Health, Maternity/Pregnancy

Child-Only Plans Returning To Colorado

May 3, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] 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. […]

Filed Under: Health Care Goodies, Individual/Family Health

Is It Even Possible For Patients To Be Consumers?

April 28, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] Dr. Perednia makes some excellent points about the inability of patients to be true “consumers”, even in cases where they have their own money on the line. He notes that if you call your doctor’s office to find out the price of a procedure, they won’t be able to tell you because there are too many complexities in the health insurance system for the doctor to give you an accurate idea of what the cost will be. And if you call your health insurance carrier directly […]

Filed Under: HSA, Individual/Family Health, Medicare, Providers

Colorado House Approves Child-Only Health Insurance Bill

April 22, 2011 By Louise Norris

The language of the law was modified to include open-enrollment periods during which children could apply for coverage, and last September the Colorado Division of Insurance officially designated those open-enrollment periods as January and July each year. The idea was that with open-enrollment periods rather than constant access to new policies, parents would be less likely to wait until a child was sick to seek coverage. But even with the open-enrollment periods, only two carriers – Rocky Mountain Health Plans and […]

Filed Under: Health Care Reform, Health Insurance Reform, Individual/Family Health, Kaiser Permanente, Rocky Mountain

MLRs – One Size Does Not Fit All

April 7, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] A state with two functional insurance carriers offering individual policies is obviously going to have a very different marketplace than a state with ten major carriers competing for business. It will be interesting to see how things play out in the states that are granted temporary MLR waivers by CMS. Three years from now, will their insurance markets be able to provide adequate coverage and also comply with the 80/85% MLR guidelines? Or will the waivers morph into something that allows the impacted states to set their own guidelines? Time will tell.

Filed Under: Health Care Goodies, Health Care Reform, Health Insurance Reform, Individual/Family Health

HHS To Stop Accepting Early Retiree Reinsurance Applications After May 5, 2011

April 4, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] Although the program has proven quite popular – as of last month, HHS had approved approximately 5850 applications – one of the concerns from the beginning was that the $5 billion allocated to the ERRP might not be sufficient to last until 2014. HHS said from the start that they would only accept applications as long as they had enough available funding. They have now announced that they will not accept any new applications after May 5, 2011. […]

Filed Under: Group Health, Health Care Reform, Individual/Family Health

Spending Caps Will Help Individual Families But Won’t Reduce Overall Costs

March 30, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] But although the spending caps will be beneficial to families that have large medical expenses, they do nothing to actually address the rising cost of health care, and the over-utilization that is also driving costs. This has been a recurring theme with a lot of the provisions created by health care reform: we’re finding ways to spread the costs in a more equitable fashion, but we’re not really addressing the fact that the total cost burden of health care in this country isn’t sustainable on its current trajectory, no matter how much we spread it out across the population.

Filed Under: Group Health, Health Care Reform, Health Insurance Reform, HSA, Individual/Family Health

Senate Bill 200 Begins The Process Of Creating Colorado Exchange

March 25, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] Senate Bill 200 (the Colorado Health Benefit Exchange Act), co-sponsored by Senator Betty Boyd (D – Lakewood) gets the ball rolling on the health insurance exchange that the state will have to have in place by 2014. Specifically, the bill would create a “nonprofit unincorporated public entity known as the Health Benefit Exchange”. It includes guidelines for the appointment of a 12-member board of directors (9 of whom will be voting members) who will oversee the exchange, and lays out their responsibilities. […]

Filed Under: Colorado Division Of Insurance, Group Health, Health Care Reform, Health Insurance Reform, Individual/Family Health

New CoverColorado Provider Fee Schedule

March 23, 2011 By Louise Norris

As of April 1, 2011, CoverColorado will be switching to a new fee schedule for reimbursing providers. In the past, CoverColorado has used the Rocky Mountain Health Plans provider network, and doctors were paid according to the RMHP network-negotiated rates when they treated CoverColorado members. The new CoverColorado-specific fee schedule applies to any provider who treats a CoverColorado member, regardless of whether that provider is part of the RMHP network or not. […]

Filed Under: Group Health, Health Care Goodies, Health Care Reform, Individual/Family Health, Providers, Rocky Mountain

Does Colorado’s New Maternity Law Impact Underwriting?

March 16, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] The language in the Division of Insurance FAQ page does seem to create some confusion on the issue. Stating that “A person who is already pregnant may obtain insurance at this time” could be interpreted in various ways… some might see it as saying that the person may obtain insurance if the carrier allows it (which none of them currently do), while others might see it as stating that the DOI interpretation of the law requires carriers to treat a current pregnancy as a specific exclusion rather than cause for an outright decline. […]

Filed Under: Colorado Division Of Insurance, Health Insurance Reform, Individual/Family Health, Maternity/Pregnancy

Maternity Coverage On Renewing Individual Policies

March 16, 2011 By Louise Norris

Since January 1, 2011, all new individual health insurance policies issued in Colorado have included maternity coverage as required by a new state law. The text of the bill was quite clear in stating that its provisions would apply to all “policies issued or renewed on or after the applicable effective date of this act.” (see the top of page 3 of the text). But until now, there was still some confusion around maternity coverage and policy renewals, and inconsistencies in how the law was being applied. […]

Filed Under: Health Care Reform, Health Insurance Reform, Individual/Family Health, Insurance Companies

Using HRA Funds To Purchase Individual Health Insurance

March 15, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] However, it appears that the Colorado Division of Insurance has repealed its 2009 order regarding the use of HRA funds to purchase individual health insurance. Final Agency Order O-11-064 details the questions involved (including issues regarding eligibility for CoverColorado) and concludes that “Self-funded employee benefit plans sponsored by a private company such as an HRA, are employee benefit plans under ERISA and are not subject to the jurisdiction of the Commissioner.” […]

Filed Under: Group Health, HRA, Individual/Family Health

Mandatory Health Insurance Does Not Prevent Medical Bankruptcies

March 11, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] The study’s authors note that implementing mandatory health insurance rules is not likely to result in a significant decline in the number of medical bankruptcies nationwide unless we also focus on improving the level of coverage that people have (to reduce out of pocket exposure), and on expanding access to disability insurance that can help provide income to people who are unable to work because of a major illness or injury. […]

Filed Under: Health Care Reform, Health Insurance Reform, Individual/Family Health

New Study Finds Healthcare Reform Will Benefit Colorado Economy

February 28, 2011 By Louise Norris

The New America Foundation (NAF) and the University of Denver’s Center for Colorado’s Economic Future recently published a new study in conjunction with The Colorado Trust and The Colorado Health Foundation. The study was designed to look at the projected economic outcomes for the state of Colorado with and without health care reform. For the reform scenario, the researchers concentrated on the recommendations created by the Colorado Blue Ribbon Commission (208 Commission) a few years ago. They compared that data with the projected outcomes if we do nothing and simply maintain the current system with regards to health care. […]

Filed Under: Health Care Goodies, Health Care Reform, Individual/Family Health

Student Health Insurance And The PPACA

February 10, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] Today, HHS has proposed additional regulations specifically aimed at student health insurance policies, in order to make sure that those plans meet the guidelines created in the PPACA. In essence, it would define student health plans as “individual health insurance coverage” and would eventually obligate student health plans to meet the same requirements as any other individual policy. […]

Filed Under: Health Care Reform, Individual/Family Health

Repealing The Mandate – Some Simple Math

February 9, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] As I’ve mentioned before, health care costs are what drive health insurance premiums. And until we figure out how to reduce the amount we spend on health care, health insurance premiums will continue to rise. But they will rise even faster if we require health insurance carriers to accept all applicants without imposing some sort of system that eliminates the possibility for people to wait until they are sick to purchase coverage.

Filed Under: Health Care Goodies, Health Care Reform, Health Insurance Reform, Individual/Family Health

Removing HSA Contribution Cap Does Not Solve Any Health Care Problems

January 20, 2011 By Louise Norris

[…] People who already max out their HSA contributions and still have money left over to contribute more would likely appreciate the removal of the HSA contribution cap. But those are not the people who are struggling to afford health insurance or pay for medical care. They are not the people our elected representatives should be focusing on when coming up with solutions for health care reform. Although I like our HSA and the flexibility it gives us to save for future medical expenses, I acknowledge that HSAs are not a panacea for what ails our health care system. […]

Filed Under: Health Care Goodies, Health Care Reform, Health Insurance Reform, HSA, Individual/Family Health

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