Cavalcade of Risk #141: Call for submissions

Jay Norris hosts next week's CavRisk. Entries are due by Monday (the 3rd).NB: We're now using this submission tool: The BC WorkAroundOnce there, you'll be asked to provide: ■ Your post's url and title■ Your blog's url and name■ Your name and email■ A (brief) summary of the post ("Remarks")At the bottom of the form, you'll see a drop-down menu; simply select "Cavalcade of Risk" then press "Submit"...

Seniors Need to Pay Their Fare Share

A few weeks ago President Obama proposed a new tax on seniors that use THEIR OWN MONEY to purchase what he considers a rich Medigap plans. If you have a "first dollar" Medicare supplement plan, such as Medigap plan F, Obama believes you should pay more than anyone else for Medicare Part B. On September 19, 2011, as part of...

Medigap F Over the Top

Medigap plan F is quite popular in Georgia, but is it a good value? Not in my opinion. Plan F is one of the highest cost Medicare supplement plans and in most cases is way overpriced.Recently I was asked to compare an existing plan F against other carriers. This individual had a BCBSGA Medigap plan F, a very solid and competitive...

Kermie says: It's Health Wonk Review Time!

Joe Colucci, of the New America Foundation blog, hosts this week's Muppet-inspired collection of wonky posts. So hop to ...

Welcoming 5772

As we enter a New Year, our thoughts turn to new beginnings, new possibilities, new hopes.May you be inscribed for a blessing in the Book of Life.L'Shannah Tovah T'katey...

HHS Powergrab: 1st Amendment be darned

Cato's Michael Cannon reports on the latest shenanigans from HHS Secretary Shecantbeserious:"The guidelines evidently require all communications to be approved by the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs. Also: no off-the-record communications."Hey Kathy: this word "transparency." I do not think it means what you think it mea...

Baby Joseph Update: Sad (but not unexpected) news

Baby Joseph, whose story captured our hearts (and enraged our sense of fairness), passed away "Tuesday night in the comfort of his own home in Windsor, Ontario."There really wasn't a realistic chance for long-term survival, but that was never the end-goal here. Rather, it was to grant him the chance to die with dignity and grace under the loving care of his parents.Rest in peace, Baby Jose...

Weird: IBD gets one wrong

Weird: IBD gets one wrong"Despite ObamaCare, Costs Continue To Soar"Reads the headline.But it should read:"Because of ObamaCare, Costs Continue To Soar"As we've documented again, and again, and again, Obamneycare© is directly responsible for the recent increases in health insurance costs.Of course, for its proponents, this is a feature, not a bug:"If you get a job for 40 hours a week, you're going...

Lexis-Nexis Top 50 nominations

InsureBlog is once again nominated for the Lexis-Nexis Top 50 Insurance Law blogs, and we would really appreciate your support. . Would you please pop over (just click here) and leave a comment in support of us. You may need to register (it's easy and free), and please make sure to mention InsureBlog.Than...

This Sceptered Isle - Part CLXXIII

Last week the UK announced that it will scrap its 9-year-old Information Technology (IT) project intended to digitize all National Health Service patient records and link all parts of the enormous NHS together. The reason? According to Britain’s department of health, the project “has not and cannot deliver to its original intent”. What has this project cost so far? About $6.4 billion British pounds,...

Disabled Economy?

From time to time, we note trends in various lines of insurance, and a recent email from the Council for Disability Awareness has information from the 2011 Long-Term Disability Claims Review.Disability insurance replaces lost income in the event of an injury or (usually long-term) illness. It's available in both group and individual...

Meanwhile, back in the Lab (LabCorp, that is)

If you're a United HealthCare insured and you've had any lab work done the past few years, then you're probably familiar with LabCorp. That's because they're (apparently) the largest such labs in the market, and they (again, apparently) had quite the cozy relationship with UHC.Maybe a little too cozy for some: Andrew Baker (formerly of Unilab) has filed a suit against LabCorp, alleging a rather massive...

Grand Rounds is up!

Doc Zubin hosts this week's humor-themed collection of great med-blog posts. Careful of your funny bo...

On The Record (Yours, that is)

Speaking of passing the bill to see what's in it, HHS Secretary Shecantbeserious gets to see what's in your medical records:"(T)he federal government is demanding insurance companies submit detailed health care information about their patients"And, of course, we're all confident that these records will be secured in a HIPAA-compliant manner and would never be used by, oh, Death Panels.As Rep. Huelskamp...

UARS Update: Are you covered?

As we watch (not without trepidation) the descent of the UARS satellite, it's becoming increasingly likely that it will land in an American backyard or, worse, living room.So, is that a covered exposure?It's not an Act of War or G-d, but it's not your typical hail- or windstorm, either. So, as with most things P&C, I turned to FoIB (and P&C Guru), Bill M.With the usual caveats (including "read...

CLASS Dismissed

We get results:"The Obama administration is reassigning the workers in the office that was developing the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act long term care benefits plan.""Reassigning," hunh?Sounds innocuous enough, right?Well:"[T]he office was being “reduced.”I bet.Never fear, though, HHS Secretary Shecantbeserious' spokescritter assures us that "the office is not closing...

On Balance Billing

Bob recently posted about the act of balance billing by providers.While I would never question Bob’s expertise in the field of insurance, I would like to clarify some points about balance billing. To begin, we need to understand how we have the health care payment system that is currently in place. The insurance structure that exists today came about during World War II. At the time, there was a wage...

Intriguing Employer Tricks

Regular readers know that we're big fans of Consumer Driven Health Care (CDHC). When consumers (insureds) have "skin in the game," they're more likely to be careful health care shoppers. After all, if it's their cash at stake, there's an incentive to become actively engaged in the process. The fly in this particular ointment has always been a lack of transparency in the actual cost of care.When we...

Shameless Self-Promotion Bleg

We've had the honor of being a Lexis-Nexis Top Insurance Law Blog since that appellation has been in existence. And we're very proud to announce that we've been nominated as a candidate for the LexisNexis Top 50 Insurance Law Blogs of 2011.The folks at L-N are inviting folks to comment on our worthiness, and we would certainly appreciate our readers letting Lexis-Nexis know why they find InsureBlog...

From the Spindle: Wednesday Link Potpourri

Here are some interesting tidbits that, for one reason or another, never made it to full-post status:First up, healthcare in England (Olde and New)."A leading teaching hospital faces closure as a result of the financial crisis gripping the NHS ... The health trust, one of the largest in the country, is effectively bust."But, but, but: we've been told (ad nauseum) how much more efficient gummint-run...

State-based Medical Care: Rx or Bust

It ain't just the MVNHS©:"Swiss drug giant Roche Holding AG has stopped delivering its drugs for cancer and other diseases to some state-funded hospitals in Greece..."Oh, the humanity! That evil, greedy Big Pharma, putting innocent lives at risk in favor of their obscene profits?Wait, what?Turns out, it's not so much greed as necessity:"...some state-funded hospitals in Greece that haven't paid their...

Cavalcade of Risk #140: Doom & Gloom edition

Dr Jaan Sidorov presents this week's collection of risky, often scary posts, all tied together with a big dollop of (very dry) humor.Don't miss this o...

As long as we're being silly: Bruce Banner, CLU

MSN had a rather silly little post the other day, wondering if Batman needs life insurance:"A survey asking which fictional characters need life insurance suggests most of us don't know much about coverage."After reading the article, it's apparent that the author still doesn't.Let's do a little fisking, shall we?First up, the strange case of Batman. His alter ego, Bruce Wayne (who lives in stately...

Haggling will reduce the cost of health care: The eternal hope of optimists

Consumer Reports Magazine, in its Oct. 2011 issue, has an article How to Haggle with your Doctor. Once again we have an article that directs the consumer, in this case a patient, to haggle with a physician over the cost of medical care. While being able to haggle with a physician seems like a great way to bring down the cost of that health service, the reality is that the physician has the least control...

Grand Rounds is up!

Dr Ramona Bates hosts this week, with an eclectic collection of great medblog pos...

Let the Games Begin: AIDS version

This is kinda cool:"In just three weeks, online gamers deciphered the structure of a retrovirus protein that has stumped scientists for over a decade ... their breakthrough opens doors for a new AIDS drug design."Kind of reminds me of the SETI program that used a distributed computing model to track potential messages from "out there." In this case, scientists had hit a wall in their efforts to deactivate...

BREAKING: Anthem Pulls PFFS

More on this shortly, but just received this in email:"Anthem has made a difficult decision to non-renew all PFFS plans in all states and counties for 2012."Regular readers may recall Kelley's post explaining how Private Fee-For-Service (PFFS) plans work. For now, the bottom line is that the $500 million hit Medicare took for ObamaCrap is already paying dividends.And by "paying dividends," we of course...

Dangerous Carrier Games

In addition to a great speaker, yesterday's festivities included a kind of "Expo" where one could meet with representatives of various carriers and other vendors. The gentleman from Assurant (nee: Time Insurance) touted their recently revamped "Access" program. It's essentially a simplified (as opposed to guaranteed) issue mini-med type program.Here's the problem: he told me that the company recommends...

An Afternoon with the Commish

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to listen to a brief presentation by our new Insurance Commissioner, Mary Taylor. Although she took office only a few months ago, she had some interesting things to say, and gamely took questions from a group of (understandably) discomfited insurance agents (I got the first one).We only had her for about half an hour; she spoke for maybe 20 minutes, but that was fine...

Cavalcade of Risk #140: Call for submissions

Jaan Sidorov hosts next week's CavRisk. Entries are due by Monday (the 19th).NB: We're now using this submission tool: The BC WorkAroundOnce there, you'll be asked to provide: ■ Your post's url and title■ Your blog's url and name■ Your name and email■ A (brief) summary of the post ("Remarks")At the bottom of the form, you'll see a drop-down menu; simply select "Cavalcade of Risk" then press "Submit"...

CLASS Warfare

Well, it only took seven-plus months, but the MSM has finally caught up with us:"[G]overnment experts repeatedly warned that a new long-term care insurance plan could go belly up, saddling taxpayers with another underfunded benefit program, according to emails disclosed by congressional investigators."Actually, we could have saved these investigators some time (and the taxpayers some cold hard cash),...

Health Wonk Review: Our Own Words edition

FoIB David Williams hosts this week's collection of healthcare polity and policy, eschewing his usual format in favor of letting each of us summarize our own posts. Very co...

Competitive Oncology

A close friend (for 40-some years) was diagnosed a year or so ago with breast cancer. She recently moved to Cincinnati, but her oncologist is in Columbus (a good hour-and-a-half drive each way). She likes her doc, but would prefer someone "closer to home," so she's started oncologist shopping.I asked her how that was working, and about her criteria. The first doctor she met with claimed that the practice...

Been tellin' ya so...

We've long maintained that ObamneyCare© would ring the death-knell for group insurance. It appears, though, that we may have miscalculated when that might happen.Turns out, a lot quicker than even we'd anticipated:"Fewer people received insurance coverage through their employer in 2010 than in 2009, and the number of people covered through government insurance programs continued to rise, according...

A(nother) Kick in the Kidneys [UPDATED!]

If there's a downside to almost 7 years of posts, it's that there seems to be very little new under the sun:"A Nashville woman seemingly has to choose between her family's financial well-being and a distant relative's health ... The challenge is that the procedure would require her to miss quite a bit of work, and her employer is unwilling to guarantee that her job will still be there for her when...

On Fraud, Abuse and Medicare

As Bob pointed out this summer, "fraud and abuse" represents a pretty hefty chunk of Medicare's budget. Of course, we'd all like to see less of both, but that agency's own culture of incompetence makes it darned unlikely:"It started when Richard West went for some dental work and was told his Medicaid benefits had somehow maxed out ... He called various government hotlines but got no help."What Mr...

More from the D'Uh! Dept.

As Bob noted a while back, the response to PCIP (Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan) has been, well, underwhelming. There seem to be a number of reasons for this, but my hometown paper, The Dayton Daily News, may be on to something:"Ohio's high-risk health insurance pool that began a year ago as part of the federal health care overhaul is facing higher-than-expected costs, which are limiting enrollment."Ya...

Out of Network Balance Billing

Out of network balance billing for P.A.R.E. claims are lurking and will pick your bank account clean. These hidden providers are like gunslingers in the wild west. They are not beholding to any rules and are free to charge whatever they want. If you don't pay they can ruin your credit and there is little you can do about it other than pay up.Georgia State Representative Rusty Kidd found out the hard...

Well, D'unh!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the meme of the week:"Drops in the number of major hospitals and major health insurers seem to contributing to increases in the cost of health coverage."Ya think?!Carnegie Mellon University economist Martin Gaynor shared this amazing observation with the health subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee.We could have saved him the troub...