Affordable Health Insurance Quote For Family
Medical insurance often brings a sense of relief to families who have experienced the high cost of health care. Whether your family is large or small, receiving medical treatment can put an enormous dent in your financial savings. Having the knowledge that you need family health insurance is only the first step to begin protecting your family and save money from the rising cost of health care.
Why is it important to get health insurance quotes
As with any major purchase it is important to first shop around for the best deal. This same premise applies to purchasing health insurance. To begin gathering family health insurance quotes you can talk to your employer (if you work full-time). Many employers offer a group health plan. If you do believe the plan they offer is what you need you are not required to participate and you can pay for health insurance through a private provider. However, having the information from your employer regarding health insurance is a great starting point for comparing other forms of health coverage.
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Talk to friends and family about the type of coverage they have for their families. Often times they can recommend providers that offer a flexible plan for the lowest possible cost. If you have access to the Internet, take some time to apply for several different online quotes. If you are still looking for more information to compare, you can call several different providers of health insurance.
What types of health insurance is available
Once you have gathered all the information you need to make an informed decision you may notice that the health plans offer three primary types of coverage:
* Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs)
* Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs)
* Pay-For-Service (POS)
It is important to not only compare the plans against each other and find out what they each have to offer but to also compare what type of coverage your family needs. Remember to purchase a plan that meets your medical needs and not one that offers coverage for areas that you do not need. You do want to make sure that you have coverage for doctor’s visits, hospitalizations, and major illness. Once you have established those requirements you can begin to compare which plan offers you specifics for your family’s medical needs.
Gathering the information for family health insurance quotes can be time consuming although the final result will be financially rewarding with the amount of out-of-pocket expense you will be saving.
Compare Health Insurance To Find The Best Florida Individual Health Insurance
Many people today think that getting Florida individual health insurance to cover their insurance needs if they do not get this from their employer is out of the question due to cost. There are a great many people who feel that health insurance is too costly for them to afford and go without it. This can not only be detrimental to the health of any individual, but can also end up costing someone their life savings or their home if they wind up in the hospital and face a mountain of medical bills. For this reason, it is important to have health insurance as well as compare health insurance coverage.
When you compare health insurance coverage, you can see the difference in the coverage that different companies will offer you as well as the rate for the coverage. When you are looking for Florida individual health insurance, it pays to make sure that you compare health insurance by way of coverage that is allowed and the amount of the monthly premiums for the coverage. The more comparisons you do when you are looking for Florida individual health insurance, the more you will see that having health insurance is affordable and usually a lot more affordable than you think.
You want to compare health insurance coverage by way of what they will allow you. Some companies have a network of doctors from which you can choose when you are getting Florida individual health insurance. Other companies allow you to choose your own doctor. The type of coverage that you pick depends upon your own personal preference. There is also a difference between co payments for some companies as well as deductibles. The higher the deductibles, the lower the health insurance quotes, so this is something that an individual might want to take a look at if they are looking for a way to save on monthly premiums. It is much more affordable to have high deductibles when it comes to health insurance than low deductibles as you are basically getting Florida individual health insurance in this way to make sure that you are covered for a hospitalization.
It is important for everyone who lives in the State of Florida to have Florida individual health insurance as this can help them not only prevent massive medical bills in case they have to go to the hospital but will also induce them to seek out medical care if they should need it. Many medical problems can be avoided by seeing the doctor before they become a problem that requires surgery or hospitalization. The more someone sees the doctor for regular checkups, the more they can enjoy good health. Those who are looking for Florida individual health insurance should make sure they compare health insurance that not only allows them to be covered in case of a major illness or accident, but also allows them to a see a doctor for preventative medical care. Both aspects of health insurance should be reviewed by anyone who is seeking to compare health insurance quotes.
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Health insurance quotes reform Obamacare updates
Health care spending projections for the next decade, published in the journal Health Affairs last week, appeared to have a little something for everyone. Prepared by Medicare’s Office of the Actuary, the report notes that health care spending will increase 0.2 percent faster than previously projected due to the health reform law’s many changes to the system. As a result, The New York Times proclaimed that the “health plan won’t fuel big spending,” causing an annual spending increase of 6.3 percent rather than 6.1 percent. The Christian Science Monitor, on the other hand, warned that reform will definitely cause health insurance costs to rise and that Americans should be on guard for big increases in 2014 when many of the law’s major provisions kick in. Spending on health insurance is expected to increase 12.8 percent in 2014 as millions of uninsured Americans gain coverage. However one interprets the results of the report, it is clear that rising health care costs remain unfinished business.
ARIZONA: The Senate has established an Ad-Hoc Committee on the Impacts of Health Care Reform Implementation. The Committee will hold its initial meeting later this month. The preliminary agenda includes: Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (Medicaid) requirements; insurance reforms; impacts on health care providers; and tax implications. Members appointed to the committee include AHIP retained counsel, clinical and employer representatives, and representatives of the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank.
COLORADO: The Division of Insurance (DOI) has applied for a million health insurance exchange grant. If awarded, the funds will be used for research and developing recommendations for implementation of an exchange. Specific areas mentioned include modeling on adverse selection, value choices, increasing actuarial staff and determining the actuarial effects of benefit packages within an exchange and in the external regulated market. The Department of Regulatory Agencies finalized three regulations that define the standardized electronic identification and communications systems to be used by all health plans operating in Colorado. The regulations are the result of 2008 legislation requiring carriers to use systems certified by the Committee on Operating Rules for Information Exchange (CORE). Carriers must be able to demonstrate their compliance by Sept. 1, 2012.
DELAWARE: The Department of Insurance (DOI) has issued a bulletin regarding recently enacted legislation that prohibits rescissions based on medical claims underwriting. The legislation signed into law by Governor Markell on August 30th prohibits rescission, cancellation, or limitation once an enrollee is covered, except in cases of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of a material fact. Effective Sept. 23, 2010, prior approval by the Commissioner or her designee is required before a health insurer may rescind, cancel or limit existing coverage based on written health or medical information.
LOUISIANA: The DOI has applied for a grant related to health insurance exchanges. Aetna, along with the Louisiana Association of Health Plans, will participate in a meeting with the DOI to discuss the grant and other issues related to health care reform.
NEW JERSEY: The Department of Banking & Insurance (DOBI) last week issued a bulletin providing template contract riders that insurance carriers can use for the large group market and the (non-reform) individual and small employer markets to describe changes to comply with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The rider templates, which may be used by carriers without submission to DOBI for formal review or approval, address the following health benefit plan requirements: Extension of coverage to dependents; annual and lifetime dollar limits; first-dollar coverage of preventive services; limitations on preexisting condition exclusions; and rescissions. A carrier not using the rider template must submit their own forms for DOBI’s formal review and filing, or approval to bring benefit plans into compliance by September 23, 2011.
OKLAHOMA: DOI Commissioner Kim Holland and staff hosted an informational stakeholder meeting last week to discuss the DOI’s plans for creation and implementation of Oklahoma’s exchange under the PPACA. DOI intends to use issue-specific working groups to manage the task going forward. The state’s online Medicaid enrollment process went live September 7 and processed over 2,000 applications with a 60 percent approval rate the first 28 hours. Over 400 apps came from hospitals that provided overwhelmingly positive feedback. This web tool was referenced as a possible “starting point” of the exchange’s eventual infrastructure. The DOI submitted an application for a million Exchange Planning Grant in August and expects to hear a decision from HHS by the end of this month. If awarded, the money will be used, in part, to hire a consultant to assist with an RFP to hire a vendor to help build the exchange. Other topics of conversation focused on the more technical and difficult aspects of building an exchange, such as coordinating billing/payment through employers, collecting and reporting data on those entitled to tax or premium credits and cost sharing subsidies, allowing/finding/identifying navigators to assist consumers, and deciding if any additional state benefits/mandates would be included in coverage. Aetna will stay active in this process by serving on future workgroups when appropriate.
WYOMING: The DOI has submitted its plan for a health insurance exchange grant to the federal government. The DOI will use 0,000 to fund a study, to be overseen by a Governor’s task force, of the feasibility of three exchange options. The options include (1) operating a Wyoming state exchange, (2) participating in a regional exchange, or (3) allowing HHS to run the exchange. This study would occur in two phases: phase one would help educate task force members and consult with stakeholders and experts on operating an exchange in the state; phase two would include implementing the recommendations of the task force if it is decided that Wyoming should participate in the operation of an exchange. DOI has indicated that no legislative action is necessary to carry out the duties of the grant, unless the state decides to pursue the operation of an exchange. The white paper also outlines that several key governmental agencies will participate in the efforts, which will be facilitated by the University of Wyoming.
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Repeal the health insurance bill
The Republicans have not put together any plans to get people health insurance in the country. If they do repeal the bill then many middle class families will suffer because their consumer protections will be gone. Republicans are only against these protections because they hate the Affordable Care Act.
The big problem is that the new coverage changes became implemented on Thursday and the benefits are extremely popular with voters. A Republican push to repeal the bill spells big trouble for candidates in 2012. Voters feel taken advantage of by health insurance companies and if Republicans are successful then even more people will become uninsured.
The Republicans did not have one member vote for the passage of the health care reform bill. They want to block the bill’s funding and might be successful if they pick up enough seats during the 2010 elections in November. President Obama would likely veto the health care reform bill’s repeal so any measure to repeal would have to wait until 2012 at least to be implemented.
Republicans need to think hard about shifting the health care issue onto themselves. If they can repeal the bill then voters will blame them for the consequences that follow. Health care spending increased by more than one trillion dollars in the last year; action needs to be taken to stop this. Repealing health care reform would increase health care spending. This would add to the federal deficit and raise taxes which are two things that many Republicans say that they are against.
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Health care should be a moral issue; the number of uninsured increased by twelve million people which was more than a thirty percent increase. Currently more than fifty one people in the United States lack health insurance coverage. Insuring people and helping to make the system fairer should be an issue that republicans and democrats can agree on.
Middle class families will suffer a lot financially if they do not have the benefits of the health care bill. Currently, people spend more than thirteen thousand dollars per year on their health insurance premiums. If there were no reforms in place then consumers would spend more than twenty four thousand dollars per year on their premiums. For many people, this huge premium increase would cause them to drop their health insurance coverage.
Republicans should try to negotiate with Democrats so that the provisions in the health care reform bill are more likeable to everyone involved. No matter what, the members of the Senate and Congress will always be insured by the federal government. This means that they cannot really empathize with the situation that many middle and lower class families face on a daily basis.
The health care reform bill is very popular with voters; the only part that is not liked is the individual mandate and the fines that would follow for non-compliance. The public deserves to have its health care system repaired. People cannot afford the expensive health care premiums any more. The economy cannot sustain these increases and wages have not increased in the last few years. Employers are passing on more of the premium expenses to their employees so the problem needs to be rectified so that more people can stay insured for the long term.
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health insurance Uninsured drive up hospital costs
The number of uninsured hospital admissions in Hamilton County more than doubled between 2004 and 2008, leaving local hospitals with barely three in 10 patients who have private insurance to pay for their care, according to a new report on health in the Chattanooga region.
The loss of commercially insured patients, whose insurance payments are significantly higher than those of government-sponsored insurance for the same services and treatments, has contributed to hospitals’ staggering losses to charity care.
In Hamilton County, hospital charity care losses totaled nearly million in 2008, compared to million in 2004.
More than million of the losses that year were absorbed by Erlanger Health System, Chattanooga’s safety net hospital.
Hospitals have felt the pain of providing more and more uncompensated care, said Craig Becker, president of the Tennessee Hospital Association.
But the pain doesn’t stop there. Employers and individual consumers are feeling it in the wallet, too.
As providers are forced to cost-shift their losses from uninsured patients to commercially insured patients, private insurers have raised their monthly rates to customers, contributing to more employers and individuals being unable to afford private insurance, Becker said.
“The big problem we’ve seen is nobody wants to pay for health insurance,” he said. “It’s kind of a death spiral of, the more people dropped (from insurance), the higher the commercial rates go, the more people dropped.”
Even as total hospital admissions declined by a few percentage points, uninsured admissions grew 123 percent between 2004 and 2008, driven by both cuts to TennCare and recent losses in employer-sponsored health care due to the economic recession, according to the report compiled by the Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies and released today.
The annual Ochs report focuses on health in the six-county metro region including Hamilton, Marion and Sequatchie counties in Tennessee, and Catoosa, Dade and Walker counties in Georgia.
The 2010 report provides a sobering overview of local health statistics, from high smoking and obesity rates, to an age-adjusted death rate that exceeds the national average, and one of the state’s highest infant mortality rates, in Hamilton County.
“We tend to focus on those areas where it appears Chattanooga and Hamilton County lag, because from our perspective that means there’s an opportunity” for improvement, said David Eichenthal, president and CEO of the Ochs Center.
The report gives a detailed picture of the local health care system on the eve of the implementation of federal reforms, and on the heels of a severe economic downturn. A breakdown of who is paying for hospital patients’ care shows patients’ heavy reliance on government-funded health insurance.
Nearly two-thirds of 2008 hospital admissions were covered by government-sponsored health care: either TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program; Medicare, the federal program for the elderly; or Cover Tennessee, the report said.
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Across the six-county metro region, 16.3 percent of people were enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program. One in four people in Sequatchie County get their health care through TennCare.
Emergency rooms locally also are experiencing a shift as the number of uninsured emergency department visits rose from 24,797 in 2004, to 40,140 in 2008, an increase of 61 percent. Visits from those with private coverage dropped from 70,534 to 67,605 in the same period.
Local emergency physician David Seaberg pointed out that total emergency room visits increased by 7.8 percent in that time period. However, the disproportionate rise in uninsured ER visitors could indicate that more uninsured people are skipping routine care and allowing illnesses to worsen into true emergencies, he said.
“You’re seeing the uninsured are often probably sicker when they go in, because they don’t have insurance and they do wait” to see a doctor, said Seaberg, who is dean of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga.
The hospital industry supported the health care legislation passed into law in March, which is expected to bring millions of people into the private or public insurance marketplace, Becker said. But even if more people get covered, hospitals are still worried about low reimbursement rates from public programs like TennCare, which already play a major role in community hospitals’ budgets, he said. Today TennCare only pays 64 percent of a hospitals’ costs to provide care, he said.
“While it’s coverage, it’s problematic in terms of we still would have to do cost shifting,” he said.
Many of the major killers in the county are related to lifestyle factors, such as smoking and maintaining an unhealthy body-mass index. Of the 3,239 Hamilton County residents who died in 2008, the leading causes of death were heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes, much like the national trends, the report said.
Obesity is a risk factor for almost all of those conditions.
In Hamilton County, half of people ages 18 to 34 were obese or overweight, compared to 74 percent of people 55 to 64. Sixty-three percent of people with a high school education or less were overweight, compared with 60 percent of college graduates. And 70 percent of people earning more than ,000 were overweight or obese, compared to 65 percent of those earning less than ,000.
Statistics notwithstanding, local residents have an optimistic view of their health, according to the report. Nearly two-thirds of Hamilton County residents reported that they are in excellent or very good health.
But black residents of Hamilton County were one-third less likely than whites to report being in excellent or very good health, and more than one-quarter reported they were in poor health.
Responses also varied by income level: 75 percent of people earning more than ,000 reported they were in excellent or very good health, compared to just 53 percent of those earning under ,000.
Racial disparities persisted in the report, as deaths from diabetes were 2.5 times higher among blacks than whites in Hamilton County, and heart disease-related deaths were 61 percent higher among blacks.
Other disparities were worrisome, and confusing, to researchers: Although cancer mortality rates were almost equivalent to the national rates, the Alzheimer’s death rate in Hamilton County was almost double the national rate.
Mortality from Alzheimer’s locally is also 31.4 percent higher than the statewide rate, and the reasons are unclear.
That disparity has been persistent since the Ochs Center first reported it in 2006, and warrants serious investigation, Eichenthal said.
“The reason we keep highlighting it is that it’s either a really interesting reporting issue, or a really serious health issue,” he said.
More elderly people moving to the area, as well as local doctors that are more attuned to a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, are the likely reason for the statistic, said Dr. John Standridge, director of the geriatric medicine fellowship at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga.
“Instead of a disease cluster in the area, I think doctors are just better at listing it” on death certificates, he said. “For a while, doctors wouldn’t even diagnose Alzheimer’s because they thought there wasn’t that much they could do about it, so they kind of brushed it under the carpet.”
The health of babies born in Hamilton County is not equal across racial lines: Nearly 20 percent of babies born to black mothers weighed under 5.5 pounds, compared to about 7 percent for whites and Latinos.
Babies born underweight, typically those born premature, are at high risk for complications that can result in disabilities or death.
Single motherhood is also on the rise in Hamilton County. In 2008, 45.4 percent of Hamilton County births were to single mothers, compared with 39 percent in 2001. Nearly 82 percent of black mothers who gave birth in 2008 were unmarried.cq
On a national level, most of those single moms aren’t teens, said Julie Baumgardner, of First Things First, a nonprofit focused on strengthening families in Hamilton County. Unwed mothers tend to be women between the ages of 19 and 29, she said.
(In Hamilton County, births to teens between the ages of 10 and 19 declined from 14.8 percent in 2002 to 12.5 percent in 2008, following a steady increase in the earlier part of the decade.)
Much of the increase in unwed motherhood has to do with a growing cultural acceptance of the practice, Baumgardner said.
“People are definitely choosing to live together and have children together,” she said.
However, many are living in poverty without the help of the baby’s father, she said. All babies born to unwed mothers face greater risk for a slew of dangers: the risk for being abused, living in poverty, becoming an abuser or ending up in jail, she said.
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Individual Health Insurance Effects
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as the health reform bill will impact almost every American. One of the most important ways it will affect individual health insurance is that insurance companies will not be permitted to deny insurance to those with preexisting illnesses. Another important affect is that all Americans will be required to hold insurance. Insurance companies will be prohibited from placing annual and lifetime limits on coverage. Group health exchanges may also help to reduce the cost of insurance plans, giving individuals the buying power of large companies. You will be able to purchase insurance through a state exchange from 2014. The exchanges have yet to be formed, but the intended goal is to provide more affordable and subsidized individual plans. The Obama effects on individual health insurance addresses the biggest weaknesses in the individual health insurance market. Easy To Insure Me
As the reform bill was passed policy rates were climbing. A report revealed that members of the middle class were losing health insurance faster than any other income group. Those who missed the Government provided safety net because of their income were thrown on the mercies of the individual market. Here, insurers have been denied coverage based on preexisting conditions and are vulnerable to charges of high and ever increasing premiums.
The limits insurers placed on who gets coverage is one of the three major problems that needed to be addressed in the individual market. The other two are the affordability and whether the policy would pay for what is needed when the insured gets sick. A study found that excluded conditions varied by insurer. In a 2001 study by the Georgetown Health Policy Institute, researchers 37 percent of applications were rejected. There were insurers who would turn you down if you had hay fever. The public thus was a victim of a roulette insurance market. How easy is it for individuals to wade their way through the market to insurers who would cover them is a question. Although federal law requires insurers to sell policies to certain people who lose group coverage, including those who lost their jobs due to lay offs; but places no limits on what an insurer can charge. In February 2010, Connecticut announced that health premiums for individual medical plans rose in price by 20 percent over in 2009. In this void have stepped some states in varying degrees. Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Vermont required insurers to sell individual policies to everyone, irrespective of their health. Washington state required insurers to take individuals with some health problems. While, Iowa required insurers to cover preexisting conditions in new applicants, if they had insurance previously for those conditions and did not let the insurance lapse.
Of those who do buy their own insurance the health insurance market works well for some; but, not for others. In the individual market prior to the reform bill, in order to lower their risks insurers preferred the healthiest applicants. In most states, insurers may consider the health history of the applicant in deciding coverage and its cost. Unlike group plans offered by employers which provide coverage to everyone, there is no guarantee in most states individuals can obtain insurance. It has been realized that solving problems in the individual market would improve the health care crisis. In California, Connecticut and several other states regulators have taken actions against insurers who revoked individual coverage after policyholders fell ill. Before the President won the election Senators Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, and Bob Bennett, a Republican from Utah were supporting a bill that would shift workers getting coverage through employers to purchase their own insurance. The intention of their proposal was to break the link between employment and insurance. The two supporters of the bill believed this would let people keep their coverage even when they lost or switched their job. The proposal would have required everyone to have coverage and insurers to sell insurance to all applicants. The health reform bill has addressed these failings. Both presidential candidates had expressed the desire to improve options for people who buy their own coverage. Candidate Obama wanted to allow individuals and small firms to have the bargaining leverage and purchasing power of latge firms by creating ways for individuals to buy insurance in groups. Advisors to candidate McCain had acknowledged the current system was broken. Douglas Holtz Eakin, who was a senior policy adviser noted that he did not want to give the impression the individual or small group market is a good place to be, as it was not
The public hospitals have been at the vanguard of the victims of inadequate and absent coverage. They have provided for the uninsured and those under insured by Medicaid, that reimburses them at below cost. They are also unable to compete with private and nonprofit hospitals for patents with private health insurance coverage. Yet, the cost of providing care to the uninsured and under insured has climbed and taxpayer support remained static.
Currently employers are looking to shift more burdens to their employees due to rise in the cost of health insurance. A Reuters research team in analyzing claim data has discovered that smaller employers saw costs rise the most. According to a report released in March 2010, the cost for an employer to offer individual plans to workers increased by 43 percent over a eight-year period. The amount employees paid for the single plans increased over 64 percent.
Large corporate employees have enjoyed the most secure and highest quality coverage in the nation during their employment. They have not been victimized during their employment with revocation or denial due to preexisting conditions. Nevertheless, a recently released annual survey by the National Business Group on Health has indicated that the impact of rising costs means this island of safety is about to be buffeted. This surveyed large employers indicated they were considering shifting more of the cost on their employees.
Harvard researchers looking into what portion of bankruptcy filers filed for medical reasons found some enlightening information. They found that illness caused the majority of filings. The study looked at a year that preceded the housing bust; but reveals what is the general scenario absenting this reason. The larger segment of filers were covered by insurance they lost or proved to be inadequate. Majority of these were middle class homeowners who had college degrees. The study revealed the vulnerability of Americans who were literally one major illness from bankruptcy. There are big Obama effects on individual health insurance coverage. Certainly there are due to be major Obama effects on individual health insurance.
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Workplaces scared about health insurance overhaul
After months of hearing forecasts of big hikes in group health insurance rates, Keri Jenkins got a pleasant surprise. Easy To Insure ME has the answers.
Coverage costs for her company, the Norfolk-based ship agent and broker T. Parker Host, would increase by just 7.9 percent, despite new requirements under the national health care overhaul.
It was the company’s smallest rate bump since 2005.
“We were very pleased,” said Jenkins, who is T. Parker Host’s senior vice president for administration.
Many employers, like Jenkins, anticipated big changes as they developed insurance plans for the first time since the passage of the new health law.
For 2011, the law requires coverage for more people and, in many cases, mandates preventive services without extra charge to individuals – benefits that come with a price tag.
However, South Hampton Roads insurers, consultants and employers said the overhaul won’t increase rates more than 4 percent next year, largely because many plans already came close to meeting the requirements.
Overall, including other climbing expenses, local group health insurance costs are rising between 6 and 12 percent – a range comparable to recent years, they said.
For employees, that means more of the same.
“What we’ve seen is a trend where employers continue to offer less benefits and pass on more of the cost to the employees,” said John DeGruttola, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Optima Health, the insurance arm of Sentara Healthcare. “It’s really just in response to the double-digit medical inflation that occurs and continues to occur.”
Several provisions of the health care law take effect for plans renewed after Sept. 23, six months after the legislation was passed.
For many people insured through their employers, these changes will begin in next year’s coverage, which workers are now selecting during an open enrollment period.
Under the law, all plans must cover dependents up to age 26. Children up to 19 can’t be denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition.
Insurers also can’t establish limits on how much they will pay for covered benefits during the entire time an individual is enrolled in a plan. Plans can no longer terminate coverage retroactively due to honest mistakes on applications.
Other rules are contingent on how much employers change their health plans. Among them is a requirement for plans to cover certain preventive services, such as flu shots and some cancer screenings, without charging copays or co-insurance.
Companies can avoid that and some other mandates by basically freezing their plans as of March. To receive “grandfathered” status, a plan cannot significantly raise employees’ responsibility for health costs or substantially reduce benefits. Insurers found that few companies chose this option, though.
Dennis Wance was considering it for his Norfolk-based law firm, Vandeventer Black.
Because of some serious illnesses, health insurance costs would spike next year if his firm chose to grandfather its current plan, he said. However, a new plan probably would mean employees pay a larger portion of their medical bills and receive slightly reduced benefits, he said.
The choice promised to be difficult for a company that prides itself on generous health coverage for its 170 employees.
“These benefits are important,” said Wance, the firm’s executive director. “That’s why we’re reluctant to do some of the more draconian things with medical premiums to get the cost down.”
In some cases, the new law caused barely a ripple in a company’s coverage, especially if its plan already came close to meeting the provisions or if few people qualified for the new coverage.
At T. Parker Host, for example, none of the 56 employees added a new adult dependent, Jenkins said.
Other employers still wrestled with steep increases.
At Hampton-based Old Point National Bank, monthly health premiums rose more than in recent years – between 10 and 20 percent, said Joseph Witt, executive vice president and human resources director.
For his company and its 340 employees, high-deductible plans with health savings accounts have proved a good way to manage costs, he said. Those plans have lower premiums and higher deductibles than traditional plans, and allow employees to save money for medical costs in a tax-advantaged account.
“We’re hoping to one day have all of our employees say, ‘Wow, these high-deductible plans are so great, there’s no reason to be in a traditional plan anymore,’ ” Witt said. “Because the traditional plans are real dogs.”
Insurers said high-deductible plans gained popularity for 2011 because the plans allow employers to pay lower premiums and possibly invest in other benefits, such as matching funds for employee health savings accounts.
Employers also showed more interest in steering employees to wellness programs as a long-term strategy to reduce costs. Programs with incentives, such as gift cards and deposits into the health accounts, tend to work best, said Jeff Ricketts, regional vice president of sales for Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia. “Cash is king, we’ve found,” he said.
Looking ahead, employers are nervous about future demands of the health care overhaul – even as they wait to see whether it will withstand political assaults.
“I can’t say that the health care reform act has presented, in and of itself for 2011, that significant a challenge for us,” Wance said. “I think those challenges are yet to come.”
Florida health insurance block health-care reform
On his first day as Florida’s new House speaker, Rep. Dean Cannon took a clear shot at President Barack Obama’s new health-care reform law. Easy To Insure ME has the answers
“Should it really be the role of government to require people to purchase a health insurance product they don’t want, raise taxes to give that same product to others who can’t afford it, and commandeer our state government and its resources to carry it out?” Cannon, a Winter Park Republican, told House members after being sworn in two weeks ago.
“Or, should we work to limit government and empower the private sector?”
On numerous fronts, Florida policymakers have already answered that question.
While the fight against President Obama’s health-care reform may be centered in the Beltway, Republican resistance to the sweeping new mandates is also taking shape in Tallahassee. Among the battlefronts:
• Florida led the charge with 19 other states last March by challenging the law in federal court, claiming the mandates that uninsured people buy coverage violated states’ rights. A judge in Pensacola is expected to rule shortly after a Dec. 16 hearing on whether the suit can move forward. More states are expected to join after a new crop of state attorneys general are sworn into office in January.
•Last spring, GOP legislators hastily drafted a constitutional amendment spelling out that Florida businesses and residents couldn’t be forced to buy insurance, but a Tallahassee judge threw it off the November ballot for “misleading” language. Lawmakers have re-filed an altered version and hope to place it before voters in 2012.
•And perhaps most significantly, legislative leaders are poised to block spending and rules necessary to implement the law. Already, state regulators has refused to impose minimum spending mandates that might generate refunds for consumers – but which health insurers say will hurt their profits. And Gov.-elect Rick Scott has also made clear he doesn’t want the state doing anything to help the law along.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed last spring anticipated that the states would lead the way on many of its more than 100 changes to the nation’s health care system. With 3.8 million uninsured residents, Florida is one of the states that would be most affected by the law.
The most controversial reforms – including the requirement that individuals buy coverage or pay a penalty — don’t start until 2014, and phase-ins continue until 2018. But the bill requires states to start working now to improve their data-collecting and enforcement mechanisms.
It was hoped states would create their own insurance exchanges, to match individuals with insurance plans; establish “high-risk” pools to insure people now shunned by providers; and police new restrictions on insurance company profits.
But Gov. Charlie Crist opted last spring not to immediately tap into federal grant money to create a Florida high-risk pool to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions, deferring to the federal government. And now Cannon, R-Winter Park, and Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, may seek to block any cooperation by the state.
Florida has been awarded million in grants to provide 0 rebates to seniors who fall into the “donut hole” in the Medicare prescription drug program; to help prepare the Office of Insurance Regulation to evaluate out-of-state insurers seeking to sell health coverage in the state; and to plan for creating a health-care marketplace, or “exchange,” and other changes.
But even before he was officially named speaker, Cannon warned Crist that no state agency should take any steps to comply with the law “without clear and comprehensive guidance from the Legislature.” The Oct. 19 letter demanded an itemized accounting of all state agency activities regarding the federal law.
Specifically, the letter singled out the Office of Insurance Regulation for work it has begun – and which legislative budget-writers approved – to study how Florida’s health-care laws should be amended to conform to the federal reform, and to boost the state’s ability to handle new rate-filing data.
“Not only are Florida insurance officials helping the federal government to write rules on these matters, but [OIR] is jumpstarting these new regulatory functions by developing data systems necessary for enforcement,” Cannon complained.
He added: “We intend to develop a clear and statutorily-defined framework for Florida agencies’ activities in regard to the federal health law. Pending such legislative action, state agencies should examine each anticipated action or function in light of their specific statutory authority.”
Laura Goodhue, executive director of Jupiter-based health-care advocacy group Florida CHAIN, said the criticism appeared designed to bully agencies into slowing their efforts to follow the federal law.
“I know transparency is important in implementing laws, but creating a chilling effect is certainly not helpful,” said Goodhue, who attended meetings with OIR over the last year as part of an advisory health insurance board.
In response, most all of Florida’s state agencies produced itemized lists of what they had done — down to how many staff hours Department of Management Services staff spent examining new rules requiring lactation rooms and milk storage for breast-feeding mothers in the workplace.
Cannon spokeswoman Katherine Betta said last week that Cannon’s staff was still reviewing the responses and hadn’t decided “what the next step will be.”
OIR communications director Jack McDermott defended his agency’s work, adding there was no intent to be “an advocate for the implementation of federal healthcare.”
“Virtually all of this information — whether it is actual review of large group rates, or expanding data systems to collect additional data – would require additional statutory authority or administrative rules,” McDermott e-mailed in response to questions.
And recently, OIR decided to slow one of the new law’s reforms – by not imposing new profit limits on health insurers beginning Jan. 1.
A new federal “medical loss ratio” requirement would force insurers to spend 80-to-85 percent of the premiums they collect on medical care, with the remainder set aside for overhead including executive salaries and profit. Nearly half the country’s insured population are covered by providers that spend more than that on overhead and profit.
Florida’s “medical loss ratio” is 65-to-70 percent, and OIR will ask the federal government for a three-year waiver from the tougher standard, said McDermott.
At a recent hearing, most of Florida’s main health insurers complained that the new standard would hurt their bottom lines and restrict the Florida insurance market. Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty agreed, saying he feared making the change next year would “destabilize” the market and hurt competition.
The move could have a pocketbook implication for Floridians.
The law requires insurers to provide rebates to customers if they exceed the overhead limits in 2011. The feds estimate the rebates could average 4 for individuals in 2012. But if OIR wins the three-year delay, Florida consumers won’t be eligible for those checks in 2012.
“To me, the delay obviously would be helpful to the insurance companies and HMOs, and not to the patients,” said Senate Minority Leader Nan Rich, D- Weston. “That’s less money for care for patients.”
Legislative conservatives like Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood – who’s re-filed the constitutional amendment that says Floridians could not be compelled “directly or indirectly… to participate in any health-care system” – say they are determined to fight every way they can.
Plakon’s House Joint Resolution 1 has already picked up a prime sponsor in the Senate: its new leader, Haridopolos.
“We have to follow the law. But in the process, we need to put Floridians first,” Plakon said. “So if there is any room there, we would default to the position of putting Floridians first instead of this kind of massive federal takeover.”