Protecting Patients
Washington, DC — Americans were promised meaningful health benefits under health reform and deserve better than the near-worthless junk insurance that low-wage employers are lobbying to preserve, said Consumer Watchdog. The group urged President Obama to resist making wholesale exemptions to the new law.
Jones/Feuer Effort Defeated; Schwarzenegger/Leno Bill Clears Legislature
Allowing Insurers to Charge "Unreasonable" and "Unjustified" Premiums
Santa Monica, CA – Sacramento lawmakers, buffeted by hundreds of
thousands of dollars in insurance company contributions, defeated a
strong insurance rate reform bill supported by consumer and labor
organization (AB 2578- Jones/Feuer) late Tuesday night. Democratic
opponents of the Jones/Feuer legislation supported an alternative bill,
proposed by Governor Schwarzenegger and carried by Senator Mark Leno (SB
1163), that allows insurers to charge excessive health insurance
premiums under a new, industry-preferred standard that merely requires
rates to be "actuarially sound."
When Anthem Blue Cross announced its controversial premium increases in California recently, the insurer claimed, "a carrier must be able to receive actuarially sound rates." So it is remarkable that "progressive" San Francisco State Senator Mark Leno, a single payer health care advocate, recently introduced eleventh hour legislation codifying Anthem Blue Cross's "actuarially sound" defense of premium increases in law.
Actuarial Soundness” Defense Protects Insurers At Expense of Rate Regulation, Consumer Watchdog Says
Los Angeles, CA -- Anthem Blue Cross’s defense of its recent controversial premium increases will be codified in law under eleventh hour legislation by San Francisco State Senator Mark Leno, SB 1163, just as the California legislature is set to adjourn Tuesday night. Consumer Watchdog, the group behind auto insurance regulation Prop 103 that has saved Californians $62 billion, warned that if health insurers can defend rates simply by having an actuary say the increases are “actuarial sound,” as Anthem Blue Cross did and Leno’s legislation provides, consumers will be in big trouble.At the shoe store, 40% off qualifies as at least pretty good. So why does regulators' approval of new, lower rates by Blue Cross of California not feel like victory? There are lots of reasons, but first is that the revised Blue Cross rate hikes are still in double digits, averaging 14% and as high as 20%, while average wages are still falling. And Blue Cross could announce another rate hike whenever it pleases, just as many insurers continue to do.
Physicians Must Disclose If They Own CT, MRI or PET Scanners
Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a national consumer advocacy group based in Santa Monica, Calif., said the new disclosure requirement may eventually lead patients to think hard about the financial relationship their doctor has. But in the short term, he said, the law will have little impact. "People will still defer to the white coat."
Wouldn't it be great if we could all deduct our federal income and investment taxes from next year's income? And if we could also deduct that stress-reducing trip to a spa in Bora Bora? And if the government would just take our word for it? Fantasy for us, but the health insurance industry think that's what federal health reform ought to allow, on a corporate scale.
The worst definitely didn't happen in Seattle. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners deferred the worst insurance industry demands for weakening the implementation of health care reform. For a body so closely linked to...
The $1-million grants, which went to all but five states, will help many expand public access to information about rate hikes and hire experts to review proposed charges.
In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration specifically ruled out seeking prior approval authority. Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica-based advocacy group, urged the administration to reject California's grant application, saying the grant would "prevent, not develop, any effective state regulation of health insurance rates." California nonetheless received its grant, which is to be used to streamline collection of data on proposed rate hikes.
