Well, well, what have we here?

From Bloomberg (the news service, not hizzoner the mayor):"Drugmakers led by Pfizer Inc. agreed to run a “very significant public campaign” bankrolling political support for the 2010 health-care law, including TV ads, while the Obama administration promised to block provisions opposed by drugmakers . . . Whole lotta backscratchin goin on.  For whose benefit?  Yours?  Mine?  Well,...

Small Employer Health Insurance Tax Credit

The Small Employer Health Insurance Tax Credit, part of the grand scheme of Obamacare to overhaul the current health care system and make health insurance affordable, is another money hole and dismal failure. According to the Government Accounting Office:Fewer small employers claimed the Small Employer Health...

No-High Weed

From time to time, we've written about medical marijuana. One of the potential arguments against its use is that simply saying "it's for medicinal purposes" seems somewhat disingenuous.Now comes word of a pot breakthrough:"Israeli scientists have cultivated a cannabis plant that doesn't get people stoned in a development that...

Yeah, about that 3000% Premium *Decrease*

"Curtis Johnson got the shock of his life yesterday when he opened a letter from Clearwater Christian College and discovered that his student health insurance fee was going to more than double – thanks to [ObamneyCare©]."Ooo...

Alphabet Soup News

CongressCritters will be working on tweaking Health Savings Account (HSA) and Flexible Spending Account (FSA) rules tomorrow:"One of the bills, for example, H.R. 5842, the Restoring Access to Medication Act bill, would restore health account holders' ability to use HSA and FSA cash to pay for over-the-counter medications not...

Nail number 27 in the Coffin

HHS recently released new guidelines outlining who can be a provider in a hospital setting.  The headline reads:  HHS FINALIZES NEW RULES TO CUT REGULATIONS FOR HOSPITALS AND HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS, SAVING MORE THAN $5 BILLION “Today, Health and Human Services (HHS) SecretaryKathleen Sebelius announced significant steps to reduce unnecessary, obsolete,or burdensome regulations on American...

Summer Travel Insurance

Travel insurance for summer vacation. Luxury or good idea? What to look for, and what to look out for.The Georgia Dept. of Insurance issued a public service memo offering advice on what to consider in evaluating travel insurance.               Some travel insurance can protect against the...

Cavalcade of Risk #158 at Nina's Place

 Nina Kallen hosts this week's round-up of interesting and insightful risk-related posts, including some interesting personal anecdot...

Pioneering MassCare, Part Deux

Last week, Kelley posted on the folly of taxing the "RichDoctor," including a video on that new MassCare scheme. Today, the Pioneer Institute presents the second video in that series.In the video, Josh  Archambault (Pioneer's Health Care Policy Director) interviews Brian Rosman (Health Care for All's Research Directo...

Medicare at Risk

Medicare is at risk and in desperate need of reform. With 48 million on Medicare and an aging baby boomer generation, Medicare must be overhauled before it goes bust. Medicare at Risk: Visualizing the Need for Reform View more presentations from The Heritage FoundationMedicare became law in 1965 under President Johnson.Since that time the number of people covered by Medicare has expanded while the...

Late to DIAM

That would be Disability Insurance Awareness Month, which is (or, was) May. Well, better late than never.Do you know how much money you'll make over your lifetime? It may well be more than you've considered. And, of course, disability insurance helps protect those potential earnings, keeping food on the table and a roof over...

Memorial Day - A Time to Remember

Memorial Day is the time when pundits and politicians alike stand and proclaim, "One life lost is one too many." Despite their best intentions, the statement is a hollow cliche that reflects a world as we want it to be versus the realities of the world as it is. It is an empty response that lacks  eloquence and true...

Question: Need Lower Costs? Answer: Higher Taxes !

 Kelley recently posted a thoughtful comment on what Massachusetts has been up to: “Providers that charge prices deemed excessive and that they cannot prove are linked to above-average quality would pay a tax”Additional taxes on physicians to reduce excessive medical cost? Yeah, that’s gonna work.IMO, Physicians are getting a bum rap from people who blame them for rising medical insurance premiums....

Memorial Day Tribute

Luke AFB is west of Phoenix and is rapidly being surrounded by civilization that complains about the noise from the base and its planes, forgetting that   it was there long before they were...  A certain lieutenant colonel at Luke AFB deserves a big pat on the back.  Apparently, an individual who lives somewhere  near Luke AFB wrote the local paper complaining about a...

Tax the Rich{Doctors} to Lower the cost of Healthcare [VIDEO ADDED]

In the ongoing drum beat against the doctor in terms of income earned, Massachusetts lawmakers are trying to lower the cost of healthcare and have decided that doctors simply charge too much.  I spoke about this perception of the richdoctor previously as more of an attitude, but Massachusetts has taken it to a practical level with monetary penalties for the richdoctor. “Massachusetts House leaders...

Cavalcade of Risk #158: Call for submissions

Nina Kallen hosts next week's CavRisk. Entries are due by Monday (the 28th).To submit your risk-related post, just click here to email it.You'll need 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")PLEASE remember: ONLY posts that relate to risk (not personal finance tips and the like).Than...

Ezra K finally finds a nut!

As we've repeatedly knocked Ezra Klein's less-than-stellar grasp of insurance issues, it seems only fair to point out when he actually gets it right. An on-going IB meme has been consumer-centric health care, the goal of which is to educate and empower insureds to make more efficient health care choices.Ezra reports that Blue Cross of Massachusetts (BXM) is attempting to do just that. He may actually...

The Tutu Project

Nothing to do with Desmond Tutu. Pink tutu's. A grown, hairy man. In a pink tutu. And little else.The Tutu Project is a love story. Nothing kinky. True love of a man, Bob Carey and his wife Linda.Linda has been battling breast cancer since 2003. Initially it seemed she had won the battle but...

Monday Lagniappe

■ We haven't really addressed the new ObamneyCare© CO-OP program, and now's a good time to start. Scheduled to launch in 2014, these are essentially "mini-insurers" designed to compete with the big boys. CO-OP's (the misnomered Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan) would be state-licensed, and available both inside and outside...

Health Wonk Review: In-Depth edition

Dr Jaan Siderov hosts an outstanding edition of the Health Wonk Review. Great posts, and lots of 'em, all deftly edited with Dr Siderov's insight and gentle hum...

It Depends...

No, no, no.Ever heard of the "Dependency Ratio?" Me either, but it's important, and it's scary:"The U.S. Census Bureau recently reported that the dependency ratio, or the number of people 65 and older to every 100 people of traditional working ages, is projected to climb rapidly from 22 in 2010 to 35 in 2030"Right now, about 1 in 5 of us is 65 or older. So what, you ask? Well, let's look at that number....

About Those Exchanges

The folks in la-la land are at it again, doing everything in their power to make sure no one in the Republik of Kalifornia has affordable health insurance. In an attempt to get the jump on health insurance exchanges the gummint is using "focus groups" to get an idea of what Kalifornian's want and expect from a health insurance...

High Anxiety Over High Deductibles

There are some things in life that are baffling. Why do electric appliances come with warning labels that tell you not to use the appliance while bathing? Why are there no smoking signs at the gas pump? Why do men's pants come in sizes that correspond to the circumference of your waist but women's dresses come in 0 to infinity?Then...

It's for the ObamaKids©

Gotta give the proponents of ObamneyCare© credit: they're still pushing the lies. Hard. Having previously recruited Matlock to take the case to senior citizens, they've now taken aim at another kind of senior, 12th graders:"In a press announcement released [Monday], HHS stated that HHS Secretary Kathleen [Shecantbeserious]...

Intrepid Carrier Trick: Rx Edition

This is an interesting and frustrating confluence of several InsureBlog themes: Pharmacy Benefits Management (PBM), transparency and consumer-centric health care. On the one hand, we're encouraged to become more "hands on" regarding our own care, to be more cost-conscious consumers with "skin in the game." On the other, carriers...

An Historic First

Way back on this date in 1761, the first life insurance policy sold in America was purchased by the Rev. Francis Allison of Philadelphia. This makes sense, since the company which issued the policy was called the 'Corporation for the Relief of Poor and Distressed Presbyterian Ministers and of the Poor and Distressed Widows...

RomneyCare, Then and Now

RomneyCare begat Obamacare. We believe states are the best "test tubes" for anything proposed on a national level, so if you want to get an idea how something such as Obamacrap is going to play out over time, see how it has performed at the state level.             The folks at Kaiser Foundation...

The 3000% Lie

Remember back in the day, when Dear Leader promised folks a 3000% decrease in health insurance premiums?Apparently, his Ginkgo Biloba ran out:"For the first time, the total bill for the typical family of four with an employer-sponsored health-care plan ... breached $20,000 in 2012."For those keeping score at home, that's almost...

ObamneyCare© Updates

While we wait for the SCOTUS ruling on whether or not any of this will really matter. HHS Secretary Shecantbeserious and her minions continue inexorably on their way towards full implementation. To wit:■ From the "Death and/or Taxes" Department:"Final regulations for implementing the health insurance purchase tax credit provisions in [ObmaneyCare©] are set to appear in the Federal Register Wednesday...

The Church vs ObamneyCare© - Breaking News

Last time we looked, the Catholic Church was none too pleased with the direction ObamneyCare© had taken vis: convenience items birth control.Now, they've turned up the heat:"Catholic archdioceses and institutions filed suit in federal district courts across the country [today] against the so-called contraception mandate, in...

Medical Loss Ratio

Medical loss ratio's as defined (dictated) under Obamacare were supposed to bring premiums down, saving taxpayers untold millions of dollars. As Henry recently pointed out, the average "rebate" to OH consumers is about $268 to individual consumers.And that is only for those who are entitled to a rebate.      ...