MediQuotes – Insurance Quotes

Archive for February, 2010

With health insurers nationally facing increased scrutiny about rate hikes, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida is seeking double-digit increases for policies it sells to individuals and small businesses.

The state’s largest insurer, which has filed three rate proposals with regulators during the past month, wants 11.2 percent increases for individuals who buy preferred-provider organization policies. Those in small-group plans would see average increases of 14 percent or more.

The increases are necessary because of soaring medical costs, said Randy Kammer, vice president of regulatory affairs and public policy for Blue Cross. She pointed to the millions of uninsured people in Florida, whose unpaid bills have forced hospitals and other health-care providers to shift costs to private health plans.

Kammer said Blue Cross recognizes how expensive coverage can be for small businesses.

“We are really, really trying to help our customers,” she said.

Allen Douglas, Florida legislative-affairs director for the National Federation of Independent Business, called increases of 10 to 15 percent “fairly normal” as small businesses have faced steady rate hikes in recent years.

“It (rate increases) is a complaint that we hear year in and year out,” said Douglas, who has worked on insurance issues for the small-business group.

Blue Cross’ proposals are pending with the state Office of Insurance Regulation at a time when the Obama administration has tried to shift attention to rate increases, amid the broader national debate about reforming health care.

That focus increased after Anthem Blue Cross of California sought a 39 percent increase on individual policies. Obama this week proposed setting up a federal authority that could reject rate increases.

Also on Wednesday, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asked chief executives of UnitedHealth Group Inc., WellPoint Inc., Aetna Inc., Health Care Service Corp. and CIGNA Health Care Inc. to attend a March 3 meeting to discuss insurance premiums.

The Blue Cross proposals would affect four individual-coverage plans that totaled 196,286 policies as of a Nov. 30 count, according to the company’s filing with the state Office of Insurance Regulation.

About 96 percent of those policies are in plans known as BlueChoice and BlueOptions. Under the proposed increases, which would take effect June 1, the average annual premiums in BlueChoice would increase from $5,640 to $6,272, and average premiums in BlueOptions would go from $3,656 to $4,066.

Blue Cross also raised rates for the PPO plans by 9.1 percent in June 2009, 9.7 percent in June 2008 and 13.9 percent in June 2007, according to the filing.

The company also would raise rates, beginning July 1, for small-group coverage offered under the names BlueChoice, BlueOptions, BlueSelect and Miami-Dade Blue. Small-group plans are sold to businesses with up to 50 employees.

The average increase in the plans would be about 14.8 percent, with an average annual premium totaling about $10,000.

Also, Blue Cross would pass along a 14 percent average increase for small group coverage in its Health Options health-maintenance organization.

The proposal for individual plans would be similar to an 11 percent increase that Blue Cross customers of the state’s Cover Florida insurance program will see. That 11 percent total reflects the trend in increased medical costs, according to the Office of Insurance Regulation.

A check of other major insurers’ rate filings since Jan. 1 did not find significant increases.

Our friends in the House voted yesterday to get rid of the exemption from the federal antitrust laws which they have used to control pricing and competition.  If you are unsure of what I am talking about, go and start a health insurance company and see how far I get.  I will even give you 5 million dollars to start with (figuratively).  The barriers to entrance are incredible in this unfair industry.

Even the no play Republicans managed to vote yes on this measure surprising many who had thought they had quit (joke).  Only 19 Congressmen voted no and I would love to provide their names to you so we could throw them out of office but I will instead give you the ring leaders so as not to encourage a lynching.

Of course this measure is almost entirely a move for politics as most experts including the CBO know that it will not reduce premiums possibly at all.  It might though encourage more people to enter this field and start companies which never hurts consumers.

Up till now, health insurance companies were regulated by state governments which were given the job of preventing price fixing and gouging etc.

Now the bill moves to the Senate who will probably not have time to even consider the bill as they are busy ruining health reform.

The Republicans at least came forward and admitted the move was almost entirely political and thus voted for it as to not look like health insurance company employees.  The GOP wisely sat this one out and did not advise its members to oppose.

“The Congressional Budget Office has noted that the states already have the laws on the books to prevent what we are trying to deal with here,” said one Congressmen.

This move comes on the heels of Obama trying to regulate health insurance premium increases and is part of multi pronged approach to fixing health care which up till now has been as successful as a Toyota recall.

Also on Wednesday to continue with the theme of making largely useless motions, Democrats again piled on WellPoint, owner of the Anthem Blue Cross in California that has been pressing a major premium increase.

Obviously health insurance companies don’t support the antitrust repeal legislation, but knowing the situation didn’t even bother to mobilize its lobbyists to oppose it.

One consumer group believes that the anti trust legislation could save up to $5 billion a year if passed, but there is no real basis for their estimates and they had spent much of the day drinking beers in the sun.

“If there was greater investigation of concentration [of insurance companies in a region] and thorough antitrust enforcement, there could be greater savings,” said J. Robert Hunter, director of insurance for the CFA.

And I want a nap.  But there is just not enough time budgeted for during my hectic day.  Heck, in Japan they have observed that worker effeciency is increased dramatically with just a quick nap after lunch.

With the big health reform summit scheduled for tomorrow, the only thing that both companies, I mean political parties can agree on is that the health reform summit will be like trying to feed a dead bulemic.  There will be no results.  This will means for the Democrats another enormous political defeat and for Republicans another chance to ruin our economy by giving tax breaks to the wealthy.

The air is ripe for political theater and Jersey Shore like reality tv garbage.  The Republicans continue to demand a start from scratch approach to health reform and the Democrats keep crying about how a wasted year of policy negotiations will look very bad at election time.  But the real truth is that everyone in both parties is just trying to look cool like the Situation trying to impress a girl or something and could give a hot damn about your right to health insurance or health care.

What about America?

The monthly poll from the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that 75% of Americans think that Obama needs to fix health care to fix the economic crisis in spite of the disagreements.

“The poll found that the proportion of Americans who said they feared their access to doctors and hospitals would get worse under the Democratic plans dropped to 29 percent, from 33 percent who had expressed such concerns in December. In the January poll fewer than 12 percent said that they thought their access would improve.”

So in any case we should all program our tivo’s to record the political muppet show set for Thursday.