The Insurance Blog

Eh, what's up, Doc? I quit, that's what.

We've been noting the looming provider shortage for quite a while, driven in part by the increasing number of docs planning to retire rather than turn over control of care to a federal bureaucracy.And that phenomenon seems to be accelerating:"The 2013 Deloitte Survey of U.S. Physicians ... found that "Six in 10 physicians (62 percent) said it is likely many of their colleagues will retire earlier than planned in the next one to three years."Now,......

Cavalcade of Risk #180: Call for submissions

Michael Stack hosts next week's Cav. Entries are due by Monday (the 1st).To submit your risk-related post, just click here to email it.You'll need to provide:■ Your post's url and title■ Your blog's url and name■ Your name and email■ A (brief) summary of the postPLEASE remember: ONLY posts that relate to risk (not personal finance tips and the like). And please only submit if you are willing to link back to the carnival if your submission is accepted.HOST BLEG: We're scheduling Summer Cavs now - please click here to claim yours.......

There are some new developments in a story we've been covering for the past several years. From our September 1, 2011 post:"Retired city of Cincinnati workers argued in court Tuesday that City Hall is obligated to provide them for the rest of their lives with an extremely generous health coverage plan"Fast forward a year-and-a-half, and:"Cincy Solicitor Curp tells Council Ohio Supreme Court will not hear appeal in lawsuit by retirees concerning health......

Carriers are being coy about their decision to play the Obamacare HIX Wheel of Fortune. Some have hinted they may not participate in any exchanges, while others say they will pick their battle ground.Regardless, consumers will have FEWER choices than before Obamacare and prices will definitely be higher.Knowledge@Wharton: You have earlier said that there are a lot of bumps in the road ahead of the Affordable Care Act. You have also indicated......

Fool me once...

Remember this:Turns out, not so much:"Millions of Americans will be priced out of health insurance under [The ObamaTax] because of a glitch in the law that adversely affects people with modest incomes who cannot afford family coverage offered by their employers"As we've long noted, one of the key promises was that folks unable to afford the new, sky-high premiums would get rate relief through a complex system of tax "credits." The catch, though, is that a lot of those people will fall through the cracks because the calculation ignores the cost of any spousal coverage one might obtain through......

Couple of Simple Questions about Medicare and Medicare Advantage

The Obama administration expended huge effort to enact a law that will increase choices, coverage, and insurance funding for the general population.At the same time it seeks to reduce choices, coverage, and insurance funding for seniors.Why? Is there some rationale that explains these two seemingly opposite objectives?......

Medicare Advantage Cuts - The Big Lie

Medicare Advantage cuts are coming. There is no debate about that. A combination of Obamacare cuts and CMS directives means less funding for Medicare Advantage plans in 2013. Seniors on Medicare will have fewer choices. Medicare Advantage plan premiums will be higher. Copay's, deductibles and out of pocket maximums will all increase due to Medicare Advantage cuts.So where is the lie?For many, Medicare Advantage plans cost you more than original Medicare and a good Medicare supplement plan.Medicare Advantage plans are fine . . . until your health changes.Then......

Household Income and Unintended Consequences

Interesting article on the increase in people sharing housing costs:"With the cost of living on the rise and showing no sign of slowing down, total strangers desperate to save money are moving in together.As CBS 2’s Dana Tyler reported Tuesday, older adults and even families are using this method to pool their resources. And the new communities are redefining the modern family."ObamaCare and most public resources are based on Household Income. How will this affect those tests?The Census Bureau includes in a household all of the people, related and unrelated, who occupy a house, apartment, group......

Strange Bedfellows?

[Last week, Guest-Blogger Patrick Paule wrote about the potentially dangerous role untrained, unaccountable ObamaTax Navigators are slated to play in the Exchanges. This week, he's back with an update about efforts in the Ohio legislature to mitigate these problems. In fact, Patrick provided input on the bill in question. Although this concerns efforts in the Ohio legislature, the issues and problems are relevant in pretty much all 58 states. HGS]Last week the LA Times ran an article on "enrollment assisters". The other day, Freedom Works ran a blog on navigators. The subjects of the articles......

Health Wonk Review: Where's Spring edition

HWR co-founder Julie Ferguson hosts this week's outstanding collection of interesting posts from around the wonk-o-sphere. It's a bit chilly outside, but you're sure to find something to wearm you up at this week's 'Revi......

Policy Lost

As we pointed out last Fall, folks who fail to inform their families about existing life insurance policies do those left behind a grave disservice. For one thing, it gives the government even more ammo to micro-manage people's finances (who do you think pays carriers' compliance costs?). For another, it can cause unnecessary, and easily avoided, anguish.The Insurance Information Institute has some pretty helpful hints on how to track down Uncle Phil's lost policy (or even just find out if he had one). Some of these are already known to regular IB treaders (checking with the MIB, for instance),......

In a comment to my post explaining how co-insurance works, Mike offered up a very helpful correction:"... this is EXACTLY the way coinsurance works for Medicare Part B.Anyone with Part B is on the hook for 20% of their Part B expenses no matter how large those expenses might be."Quite so, and it gets worse:"Medicare Has Stopped Paying Bills For Medical Diagnostic Tests ... The Medicare agency decided to change the way it reimburses these sorts of......

As Nate pointed out earlier, actual experts in health care delivery and financing anticipate huge spikes in the cost of both. Ever on the bleeding edge, HHS Secretary Shecantbeserious has weighed in: "Some people purchasing new insurance policies for themselves this fall could see premiums rise because of requirements in the [ObamaTax]."Self-awareness, Kathy - what is ......

Obama Admin....that clueless or that dishonest?

In a story out this AM we are warned claim cost are expected to increase 80% in Ohio for those with individual policies. In basic math that would correspond to an 80% increase in premiums."While some states will see medical claims costs per person decline, the report concluded the overwhelming majority will see double-digit increases in their individual health insurance markets, where people purchase coverage directly from insurers.The disparities are striking. By 2017, the estimated increase would be 62 percent for California, about 80 percent for Ohio," As if 80% increase in claim cost wasn't......

It sure is nice to see someone else using this metaphor:"Illinois wants to be the engine that pulls states toward the Affordable Care Act, yet a metaphorical “train wreck” is just around the bend ... Illinois saved $1.1 billion last year, but lawmakers were expecting $1.6 billion in savings. The state has $2.3 billion in unpaid Medicaid bills."Ooops.Turns out, when you rob Peter to pay Paul enough times, Pete ends up flat broke, but Paul still needs......

So this arrived in email:"Higher coinsurance rates correspond to higher annual limits on medical out-of-pocket costs"Okay, I'll bite; after all, most non-HDHP (hight deductible health plans, like HSA's) have some cost-sharing (aka co-insurance), and 80/20 is pretty standard.But what, exactly, does 80/20 mean?Well, you won't learn the correct answer from the rocket surgeons at HealthPocket:"A new analysis of coinsurance rates from HealthPocket, Inc.,......

Not only did they have to pass the bill in order to know what was in it, but now it seems they had to contrive the application so we will know what they are really up to in Washington.The 61-page online Obamacare draft application for health care includes asking if the applicant wants to register to vote, raising the specter that pro-Obama groups being tapped to help Americans sign up for the program will also steer them to register with the Democratic......

Disability Insurance, or Disability Lifestyle

Coming on the heals of the Time article taking hospital billing abuse mainstream, NPR drops a bomb on the disability racket.http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/It is long but uses every bit of its length to drive the point home. Hopefully this can get the conversation started on reforming not only a broken but designed to never work system.Time and NPR practicing real journalism, not at all what I expected from an Obama reelecti......

CMS and You

Here’s my take on this interesting article from Avik Roy over at Forbes this morning, about progress toward implementation of Health Care Exchanges.Gary Cohen, a CMS official involved in exchange implementation, said “my hopes are the range of things that could go wrong gets narrower.”Henry Chao, an official at CMS, said he once held high hopes that the exchanges would run smoothly from the beginning, but “those hopes had been dashed”.Hope? Well, I hope that CMS and you have been clinging to more than “hope”. I hope it, but I’m beginning to doubt it because so little hard evidence......

Why is it that we're told - on the one hand - that insurance premiums are too high, but when an employer tries something as simple as a health screening to accomplish this, it's a terrible, horrible, no-good intrusion on our privacy?Recently, drugstore behemoth CVS introduced a program to enable its covered employees to mitigate rate increases. They were asked to undergo a health screening which would report back to the company their current height......

Gilbert Keith (G. K.) Chesterton, the philospher and author, once sagely observed:"In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't......

Cavalcade of Risk #179: Spring has sprung edition

Jacob Irwin hosts this week's collection of interesting and thought-provoking risk-related posts, and on the first day of Spring, no less!Do check it out.And consider hosting one yourself - it's fast, easy and fun. Just drop us a note to claim yours.......

■ From email:"On March 8, 2013, [HHS Secretary Shecantbeserious] ... issued a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) announcing that compliance with most [ObamaTax] provisions is being delayed for expatriate plans ... Expatriate coverage will qualify as minimum essential coverage for purposes of the individual mandate"Expat health plans is a subject we've rarely (ever?) addressed here at IB. These plans cover American citizens who live abroad for 6 or more......

In recent years, a growing number of doctors have begun holding group appointments — seeing up to a dozen patients with similar medical concerns all at once. Advocates of the approach say such visits allow doctors to treat more patients, spend more time with them (even if not one-on-one), increase appointment availability and improve health outcomes."With Obamacare, we're going to get a lot of previously uninsured people coming into the system, and......

Meh:"Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) are winning praise for a bill to kill the Affordable Care Act's tax on health insurance."From whom? Certainly not their party's leadership, which has been conspicuously quiet on the matter.Do go on, though, gentlemen:"Higher insurance costs, fewer jobs and smaller paychecks is not what President Obama promised when he signed the largest expansion of government into law nearly three years......

[Patrick Paule is a regular reader and commenter here at IB. Recently, he emailed us regarding an article about "insurance enrollers" in Exchanges. His extensive background in insurance and securities gives him a unique perspective on this potentially dangerous development, so we asked him to pen this Guest Post to explain the issue to our readers. HGS]On January 1, 2014 you hear a knock at the door. Open it up and there stands a complete stranger.......

■ Remember that promise that The ObamaTax wouldn't add "one dime" to the deficit? Well, that may be literally true, but:"Figures from the Government Accountability Office suggest that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will in fact add 62 trillion dimes over the next 75 years."Ooops.Now, 75 years might seem like a long time, but don't be fooled, that's almost a $1 trillion dollars a year over and above any other spending.■ We've written......

Ah, but it really is the ChargeMaster.....

It is great to see continued discussion of Steven Brills' tome in Time.In Sight thinks the charge master complaints are a distraction:"However, from a system perspective, I think the chargemaster that Mr. Brill repeatedly attacks is a distraction. The chargemaster is the internal list of prices that every hospital keeps for every procedure and supply item that the hospital uses. These are the prices that Mr. Brill incredulously highlights: $1200 for one hour of a nurse’s services; $1.50 for a single Tylenol tablet that you can buy a 100 of for $1.49 on Amazon.They are indeed ridiculous, and......

Cleveland Clinic's take on Empathy

Came across this ad on Not Running a Hospital, Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care: A 4 minute video on empathy, which apparently ceases to exist once the care stops and the billing starts. Billing 1000%+ of cost? Demanding 500%+ profit margins from PPO clients, suing those that don't hire a PPO and play by their rules for the difference.I can see why the Clinic would be spending money to proclaim their empathy: patients won't see it otherwise unless they are covered by Public insurance or top of the line private insurance where cost is not an issue.Not to worry Non-Profit Cleveland......

......

I have a pre-existing condition and have been on the pre-existing condition insurance plan, Obamacare, for more than a year. My out-of-pocket expense was increased 10 percent in January.Now, a new frightening message is active when I call the customer service number, (800) 220-7898.All citizens should call this number and listen to the automated message, which affects our coverage and our bank accounts. Private carriers never would do this.How would......

When DC critters plotted the grandiose scheme to take over the delivery of health insurance they did not expect so much push back . . . at least not early on.They thought carriers would rush to get on board and pick up thousands of new policyholders.Most carriers are running away.DC imagined lower premiums and more choices.What they got were significantly higher premiums and fewer choices.Washington just knew the states would be anxious to control......

Fellow insurance blogger Jeff Root poses an interesting question about life insurance underwriting and e-cigarettes: is "vaping" (e-cig users' preferred term) the same as "smoking?"Leaving aside any health or social aspects, the issue becomes what rate class one may expect to receive if one uses e-cigs. Most life insurance applications ask about "tobacco use," so carriers seem as concerned about the nicotine as the smoke itself. But e-cigs don't......

Cavalcade of Risk #179: Call for submissions

Jacob Irwin hosts next week's Cav. Entries are due by Monday (the 18th).To submit your risk-related post, just click here to email it.You'll need to provide:■ Your post's url and title■ Your blog's url and name■ Your name and email■ A (brief) summary of the postPLEASE remember: ONLY posts that relate to risk (not personal finance tips and the like). And please only submit if you are willing to link back to the carnival if your submission is accepted.HOST BLEG: We're scheduling Spring Cavs now - please click here to claim yours.......

Feeling intimidated by the 21 page application and 61 page instruction guide?Help is on the way!Introducing The ObamaFilers©For the low, low (introductory) price of just $49.95, our expert ObamaFilers© will walk you through the tedious, unnecessarily complicated and arcane process of buying your shiny new ObamaTax Policy.That's right, only $49.95 (plus tax) gets you up to one hour* of expert advice from a trained, experienced professional. Plus,......

The folks in DC are hard at work trying to make applying for Obamacare a lot easier. The Kaiser Health News critters give us Dick and Jane Sign up for the Exchange . . . complete with 2 easy to follow video's.The 21-page written application is printed in a fetching orange color. CMS estimates it will take 45 minutes to complete. Only 45 minutes . . .And how do you feel after 45 minutes of your life that you will never see again if......

The Insurance Blog

Eh, what's up, Doc? I quit, that's what.

Cavalcade of Risk #180: Call for submissions

Queen City Drama Update

Obamacare Exchanges Hide and Seek

Fool me once...

Couple of Simple Questions about Medicare and Medicare Advantage

Medicare Advantage Cuts - The Big Lie

Household Income and Unintended Consequences

Strange Bedfellows?

Health Wonk Review: Where's Spring edition

Policy Lost

Medicare digs deeper

Piling on Kathy

Obama Admin....that clueless or that dishonest?

ObamaTax "Train Wreck"

The Stupid: It Burns

Vote for More Free Stuff

Disability Insurance, or Disability Lifestyle

CMS and You

Paying the Piper

GKC, The Fence, and NARAB

Cavalcade of Risk #179: Spring has sprung edition

ObamaTax Updates

Group Rates?

Tilting at Windmills

Guest Blog: Stranger Danger - Health Insurance Exchange Edition

Monday LinkFest

Ah, but it really is the ChargeMaster.....

Cleveland Clinic's take on Empathy

Obamacare Open Enrollment

Obamacare Dead Broke

HIX Overload

"Vaping" vs Underwriting

Cavalcade of Risk #179: Call for submissions

Introducing The ObamaFiler©

The Obamacare Application . . . Revisited

Popular post

Blog List

Blog Archive