Consumer Watchdog – Protecting Patients - Blog

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.

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.

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...

It took my wife an hour and half to make the two mile commute home Monday, after the secret service closed some of LA's busiest streets at rush hour to shuttle the president from his Beverly Hills hotel to a fundraiser for Congress...

If there's one thing the National Association of Insurance Commissioners don't see much of, it's public attention. Now, however, it's got the attention of the media, consumer advocates and at least part of an increasingly aware public....

It's livelier Saturday at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners meeting in Seattle. Most refreshing was a medium-sized street demonstration, with forays into meeting rooms, by young and old demonstrators protesting lobbyist influence on health care reform. They handed out "lobbyist disinfectant packs," including soap and face masks, and demanded that regulators do their job for consumers. The sponsor was the "Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans," and it was backed by Health Care for America Now, a national group that is finally engaging with vigor on regulation issues.

(Seattle)--The big buzz today at a meeting of the National Association of Insurance Regulators was that President Obama would speak to the thousand-plus people gathered here--and then that he wouldn't. Maybe he didn't want to get...