Insurance Company Rules Blog
Drug Manufacturers Promise $80 Billion In Rx Savings—But How Much Are They Saving Themselves?
Drug manufacturers are not acting out of a charitable impulse. They are trying to forestall strong health reform legislation that would cost the industry more than it is promising. PhRMA took action in 2003 when adding a drug benefit to Medicare seemed inevitable and managed to keep a public health insurance plan—Medicare—from cutting drug costs. Now the threat of a new public health insurance option for people under 65 has spurred the powerful lobby into action once more, with promises of cooperation and voluntary discounts. Don’t be fooled! We can do better.
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07-02-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (0)
A Health Insurance Insider Blows the Whistle on the Industry’s Abusive Practices
“My name is Wendell Potter and for 20 years, I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies, and I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick—all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.” With that powerful indictment, Mr. Potter began his Congressional testimony, shining a bright light on the abusive practices of this very secretive industry and calling for a strong public health insurance plan option to set a “benchmark in transparency and quality.”
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06-25-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (0)
Nothing Intimidates Health Insurers Like the Public Health Insurance Plan
Health insurance companies routinely abuse the trust of patients and providers alike. State regulators have not been able to stop them. Insurers were not even intimidated when brought before Congress to answer for their abuses. The only thing that may scare health insurers straight is what they are fighting tooth and nail: giving people the choice of a public health insurance plan. Senators seem to be falling prey to the special interests of the health insurance industry. Don’t let them!
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06-19-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (0)
Get Sick. See Health Insurance Vanish. Watch States Fail to Curb Insurance Company Practice.
After the insurance company practice of wrongly rescinding policies once a person becomes sick came to public notice, the state of California created new rules to prevent the practice from continuing. But can a state that was too afraid to try to collect a $1 million fine against an insurance company really curb health insurance industry abuse? Clearly not. That is why President Obama wrote a letter to Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Senator Max Baucus emphasizing the need for a public health insurance plan choice that will "make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest."
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06-05-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (0)
Stuck in Your Job Because You Need the Health Benefits? You’re Not Alone.
In the United States, the majority of people get their health insurance through their job or that of a family member’s. For many workers, that means staying in a job they don’t like just to keep the health benefits they and their families depend on. Ensuring they cannot be denied coverage if they leave their job is not enough to free them from this ‘job lock’ to become entrepreneurs or move on to more satisfying and lucrative work. They have to know they will be able to afford the coverage and that the coverage they get will cover the care they need. To accomplish that we need a public health insurance plan option.
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05-29-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (0)
Medicaid Is Not an Alternative to a New Public Health Insurance Option
Medicaid is being used as an argument against the need to create a new, national public health insurance option. But Medicaid is not a good model for, nor an alternative to, the proposed new public health insurance plan. Medicaid varies too widely from state to state, its funding is unstable, its low provider payment rates lead to low provider participation, and its onerous application requirements keep many eligible people from enrolling. In addition, Medicaid has been largely handed over to private insurance companies, so it is no longer a truly public program.
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05-15-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (0)
Obama Administration Makes Clear Its Support for Public Health Insurance Plan
President Obama’s new Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, testified before Congress at a May 6, 2009 hearing on health reform held by the House Ways and Means Committee. Her testimony made clear that the Obama administration does not believe needed health reform can be achieved strictly through the private health insurance market and wants to give people the choice of a public health insurance plan. So don’t let Congress rip the heart out of President Obama’s health care plan. Support a public health insurance option.
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05-08-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (2)
The Privatized Medicare Drug Benefit: Higher Costs and Dangerous Gaps in Coverage
Supporters of the privatized Medicare Part D benefit and opponents of a public health insurance option being made available to everyone as part of national health care reform, have made much of reports that revised estimates of the Part D benefit's cost are lower than initial projections. This twisting of the facts ignores actual initial predictions and the Medicare private drug plans' performance compared with other government programs and other countries. A look at the evidence shows that the privatized structure of the Medicare drug benefit has led to higher costs for people with Medicare and taxpayers.
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05-01-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (2)
Beware of the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: Health Insurers Push on Health Reform
With health reform looming, health insurance companies have mapped out various battle plans to protect their profits. And they have shown they are not above committing fraud to keep the money pouring in.
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04-24-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (1)
Will Government Give Public Health Insurance an Unfair Advantage? Experience Tells Us No.
It's amusing to hear insurance company supporters assert that private health plans will go out of business if they have to compete against a public health insurance plan option. They claim that the government will set the rules to favor the public health insurance plan, creating an unlevel playing field that will eventually eliminate private health plans. Is it a realistic fear? A look at real world experience with the Medicare program tells us that government has done just the opposite: it has favored the private plans that contract with Medicare.
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04-17-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (1)
What Should Be the Goal of Health Care Reform?
In his New York Times op-ed “The Misguided Quest for Universal Coverage,” Ramesh Ponnuru argues that the goal of health care reform should not be universal coverage. On that point, we agree. The goal of health care reform should be to guarantee everyone in the United States has access to quality, affordable health care. But that is where our agreement stops because what Ponnuru proposes would not achieve that goal. Giving everyone the choice of a public health insurance plan is the way to stem skyrocketing health care costs and achieve that goal.
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04-09-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (1)
Do You Know What You Are Getting When You Buy Health Insurance?
The simple answer is no one does. Even the savviest of consumers do not because there is no way to know. Insurance companies keep the information required to make an informed decision secret. We need a public health insurance option to set a benchmark for transparency against which the private plans must compete. Sign the petition in support of a public health insurance option.
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04-03-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (2)
Who Prefers a Public Health Insurance Option?
For all the false alarm ringing over “socialized medicine” when a choice of public health insurance is discussed, little is said about the tens of millions of people in the United States who are currently—happily—getting their health care through a public health plan of one kind or another, and the tens of millions more who want to have that choice available to them.
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03-18-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (4)
Vital Signs Weak: Competition in Health Insurance and Health Provider Markets
Recent Republican attacks on President Obama's proposal to give everyone the option of buying into a new Medicare-like public insurance plan have, put ideological arguments about "Big Government" and "The Market" right at the heart of our public debate once again. Republican opponents of a public insurance plan claim, as ever, that they are the righteous defenders of "Competition." And they cast the public plan's supporters as competition's enemies. But when it comes to health care reform, nothing could be further from the truth.
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03-12-09 by Phillip Cryan | Comment (4)
Why AHIP Is Fighting Real Reform
AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans) is a national trade association that represents the special interests of the health insurance industry in government and in the media, and with individuals and employers. AHIP members are insurance companies profiting from the status quo. When you learn more about AHIP and its member companies, it becomes clear why the insurance industry cannot be trusted with health reform.
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03-06-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (3)
Who’s Afraid of Competition?
For opponents of President Obama’s health care reform efforts, there’s no greater rallying cry than “Competition!” Invariably, government is presumed to be competition’s sworn enemy. Yet strong government action is desperately needed to bring some competition over price and quality into the highly consolidated health insurance industry.
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03-06-09 by Phillip Cryan | Comment (2)
True Competition a Myth in the Private Health Insurance Marketplace, Part 2
Last week I wrote about the fact that there is no true competition among health insurers because there are so few of them, in most markets one insurer dominates. On the consumer end of the spectrum, there is no true competition either, because there is no way to evaluate exactly what it is you are getting when you buy health insurance. There is no standard against which you can measure what you are getting and how it will perform and no transparency in how health insurance works. We need a choice of public health insurance that will set that standard.
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02-26-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (3)
True Competition a Myth in the Private Health Insurance Marketplace, Part 1
As much as conservatives hype the importance of competition in the health insurance market, competition is largely a myth today and will remain a myth so long as private insurers have exclusive control of the health care market for individuals and working families. Giving people a choice of public health insurance would bring much needed competition to a health care system dominated by insurance companies with oligopoly power and large provider conglomerates.
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02-19-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (2)
Health Insurance Inadequate for Cancer Care and How That Relates to the Economic Recovery Package
For people stricken with cancer, having health insurance is no guarantee they will be able to afford the care they need. That sobering fact is illustrated in a new report with the stories of real people suffering needlessly in their time of crisis. As if fighting the disease were not difficult enough, cancer patients too often have to fight our dysfunctional health care system as well. Any of us could face such hardship at any time. That is why we must all take on the lobbyists and the special interests fighting health reform.
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02-12-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (0)
Time for a Choice of Public Health Insurance for Medicare Part D
In 2003 a much-needed benefit was added to Medicare: prescription drug coverage. Titled “Part D,” the benefit became a lesson in what happens when ideology trumps facts and reason. It is the only Medicare benefit that is not available directly from Medicare. To get Medicare drug coverage people with Medicare have to join a private Medicare drug or health plan. The result? Taxpayers and Medicare members have paid tens of millions of dollars more for drugs each year than they would have if there were no private insurance middlemen. A new bill introduced in both the House and the Senate would finally correct this boondoggle.
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02-06-09 by Monica Sanchez | Comment (1)
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