The health insurance industry, often at or near the bottom of a consumer’s customer service experience when compared to other industries, is paying more attention and spending more money on improving how health plans interface with patients on the other end of the telephone, a web site or, lately, though an app.
Several big-name companies, including UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Cigna (CI) and Health Care Service Corp. are seeing gains in customer service ratings. Though health insurance companies still rank at or near the bottom of customer service experiences of most consumers, the Affordable Care Act may be spurring them to get better.
Insurance companies are taking steps to build their relationship with customers as health plans prepare to compete between each other on exchanges where benefit packages will be offered.
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My first Obamacare rebate check came yesterday… via daslobo on Reddit Anyone else out there gotten one of these checks? |
Health care costs are projected to reach $20,728 this year for a family of four insured through the most common health plan offered by employers, according to the annual Milliman Medical Index.
The index includes the cost of health insurance and out-of-pocket costs, such as deductibles and co-pays.
This year, employers will pay an average of $12,144 toward the total cost, while employees will pay the remaining $8,584 through their share of the cost of health insurance and out-of-pocket expenses.
“When it comes down to it, that’s a lot of money for the typical family of four,” said Scott Weltz, a consulting actuary with the Milwaukee office of Milliman, an actuarial and consulting firm with an office in Milwaukee.
This year’s projected health care cost is up almost 70% from an estimated $12,214 in 2005.
[…]
But economists agree that the rise in the cost of providing health benefits has depressed wages over the long term.
The Milliman Medical Index, which does not include the cost of dental care, projects that health care costs will increase 6.9% this year. This is more than triple the current rate of inflation.
[…]
Nationally, total health care spending increased 3.9% in 2010 and 4% in 2009, the slowest rate of growth in more than five decades.
Part of the slowdown is attributed to the rise in unemployment and increase in people without health insurance. But an array of other factors also could be at work, from physicians becoming more conscious of costs to high-deductible health plans becoming more common.
Total health care spending is even higher than the figures in the Milliman Medical Index: $8,402 a person in 2010. That amounts to $33,608 for a family of four.
The index also doesn’t include what a typical family pays in state and federal taxes for government health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. And though the percentage increase projected for this year is the lowest in the past decade, the total dollar increase is the largest: $1,335.
Reforming the U.S. health care system is an ongoing challenge. But a group in Maine said there is a solution. Maine AllCare wants a single-payer system, where everyone gets health insurance under a government-run program. To draw attention to the issue, the group held a rally in Portland last night with members of Occupy Maine.
Adults with pre-existing conditions spend $1,504 to $4,844 more per year annually on health care, and most — 88 to 89 percent — live in areas of the country “without insurance protections similar to the Affordable Care Act provisions, which will become effective in 2014.” (via ThinkProgress)
What do hospitals charge to remove an appendix? The startling answer is that it could be the same as the price of a refrigerator - or a house.
It’s a common, straightforward operation, so you might expect charges to be similar no matter where the surgery takes place. Yet a California study found huge disparities in patients’ bills - $1,500 to $180,000, with an average of $33,000.
The researchers and other experts say the results aren’t unique to California and illustrate a broken system.
“There’s no method to the madness,” said lead author Dr. Renee Hsia, an emergency room physician and researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. “There’s no system at all to determine what is a rational price for this condition or this procedure.”
The disparities are partly explained by differences among patients and where they were treated. For example, some had more costly procedures, including multiple imaging scans, or longer hospital stays. A very small number were treated without surgery, though most had appendectomies. Some were sicker and needed more intensive care.
But the researchers could find no explanation for about one-third of the cost differences.
Other developed countries have more government regulation that prevents these wild disparities. U.S. critics of that kind of system favor more market competition, yet the study illustrates that “the laws of supply and demand simply do not work well in health care,” said Dr. Howard Brody, director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and a frequent critic of skyrocketing medical costs.
The study was published Monday in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
The Commonwealth Fund Health Insurance Tracking Survey of U.S. Adults finds that one-quarter of adults ages 19 to 64 experienced a gap in their health insurance in 2011, with a majority remaining uninsured for one year or more. Losing or changing jobs was the primary reason people experienced a gap. Compared with adults who had continuous coverage, those who experienced gaps were less likely to have a regular doctor and less likely to be up to date with recommended preventive care tests, with rates declining as the length of the coverage gap increases. Early provisions of the Affordable Care Act are already helping bridge gaps in coverage among young adults and people with preexisting conditions. Beginning in 2014, new affordable health insurance options through Medicaid and state insurance exchanges will enable adults and their families to remain insured even in the face of job changes and other life disruptions.
It was a private religious school, so while a shitty thing to do, I am not sure she can fight it legally. It is, however another example of why, having health insurance tied to employment is wrong.
The fired teacher and expectant mother said she did nothing wrong, and faces financial problems now, including giving birth without insurance.
A report from the Center for Public Policy Priorities (CPPP) found that 1.2 million Texas children do not have any health insurance. The study, which examined official state and federal government data, revealed that Texas ranks 41st in the nation in terms of the number of uninsured children. Statistics find a wide gap between the health of children who are insured and those who are not: 90 percent of children with insurance are considered healthy, compared to 58 percent who do not have it.
Recently, the legislature cut spending on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program by more than $2 billion for next year, according to CPPP. Texas is one of the states opposing the health care law’s implementation, even as it has accepted money from grants in the bill.
Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) quietly signed three controversial bills on the eve of a holiday weekend to significantly limit access to abortion services and sex education. Walker “signed the bills Thursday but didn’t announce the move until midday Friday, when his office released a list of more than 50 bills he signed Thursday and Friday,” the Associated Press reports. The measures include:
- A ban on abortion coverage in policies obtained through a health insurance exchange, set to be created under the federal health care reform law starting in 2014. The only exceptions would be in cases of rape, incest or medical necessity.
- A woman seeking an abortion must undergo an exam and consult with a doctor alone, away from her friends and family. The doctor must determine whether someone is pressuring the woman into the procedure. Doctors who break the law could be charged with a felony.
- Teachers in schools that offer sex education must stress abstinence as the only sure way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Declares that sex education teachers do not have to address contraception. That’s a dramatic shift from current state law, which requires teachers to instruct students on birth control options.
Among the 47 other bills, Walker approved the repeal the state’s Equal Pay Enforcement Act, which had offered individuals legal recourse to fight wage discrimination based on race, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation or other factors. According to the Daily Beast, “in the two years the law was in effect, not a single equal-pay lawsuit was filed,” but employers responded to the law by increasing their workplace diversity. In 2009, Wisconsin ranked 36th for gender-parity. A year later, “it had climbed to 24th,” as the gender pay gap narrowed significantly, the U.S. Department of Labor found.
Walker, who could be recalled from office in the next two months, may also be considering a presidential bid. During a recent interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, he said that “God’s got a plan for us” that may include “bigger things” than his current job. “Who knows where it might be, beyond just serving as Governor of this state,” Walker told David Brody.
Geez. Their God seems to be terribly busy guiding all these white guys on how to subjugate women. I think he needs another vocation.
May the justices please meet my sister-in-law. On Feb. 8, she was a healthy 32-year-old, who was seven and a half months pregnant with her first baby. On Feb. 9, she was a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the chest down by a car accident that damaged her spine. Miraculously, the baby, born by emergency C-section, is healthy.
Were the Obama health care reforms already in place, my brother and sister-in-law’s situation — insurance-wise and financially — would be far less dire. My brother’s small employer — he is the manager of a metal-fabrication shop — does not offer health insurance, which was too expensive for them to buy on their own. Fortunately, my sister-in-law had enrolled in the Access for Infants and Mothers program, California’s insurance plan for middle-income pregnant women. AIM coverage extends 60 days postpartum and paid for her stay in intensive care and early rehabilitation.
But when the 60 days is up next week, the family will fall through the welfare medicine rabbit hole. As a scholar of social policy at M.I.T., I teach students how the system works. Now I am learning, in real time.
Using insurers to provide funding is a complex, costly and distorting method of financing healthcare. Imagine sending your weekly grocery bill to an insurance clerk for review and having the grocer reimbursed by the insurer to whom you have been paying “food insurance” premiums—with some of your purchases excluded from coverage at the whim of the insurer[*]. Is there any plausible reason for putting an insurance agent between you and your grocer? No. Then why should an insurer stand between you and your healthcare provider? And why should you be forced to contribute to such an arbitrary scheme?
*Pretend that only 65 - 75 cents of every dollar you give to your “food insurer” goes to actual groceries (the other 25 to 35 cents extracted by the “food insurer” is for profit, lobbying the government for “food insurance” interests, and advertising “food insurance” on television) and you get an even more disgusting picture of the American healthcare system.
Readers share their experiences about the bewildering fees charged by hospitals. Even medical professionals can be baffled by the way costs are determined.
Pennsylvania: Facts about Obamacare
In the two years since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, millions of Pennsylvanians have already benefited from health reform.
Do you know all the ways the Affordable Care Act is helping you and your family? Find out here.
