Tag: "health insurance"

Is this the Insurance Casualty Model; Or Just a Dirty Trick?

The health insurance “Casualty Model” is alive and well in Georgia — but only as a punishment for not signing an in-network agreement or accepting usual and customary reimbursement for emergency room treatments.  At issue is a Georgia hospital (and one in Los Angeles) that are not part of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia network. Because neither of the hospitals are part of the insurer’s network, when covered individuals go to the hospitals’ emergency rooms, the insurer sends reimbursement checks for emergency care directly to enrollees. The enrollees are then supposed to endorse the checks over to the hospital.  This is similar to the casualty model when an insurer provides funds for a covered claim and the covered individual shops around and receives a service at the provider of their choice. When someone slid into my car during an ice storm a few years ago, an adjuster came to my office and calculated an estimate. I received the check and was told I could get my car repaired almost anywhere for the estimated amount.

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Jun 30, 2016 | 5 comments | by

Obamacare Slightly Increased Short-Term Uninsured

NHISThe best measurement of people who lack health insurance, the National Health Interview Survey published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has released early estimates of health insurance for all fifty states and the District of Columbia in 2015. There are two things to note.

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Jun 09, 2016 | 20 comments | by

Texas’ Largest Insurer to Increase Premiums 60%

An article by Ricardo Alonso-Zildivar of the Associated Press claims Texas’ largest health insurer plans to raise premiums by as much as 60 percent next year. The article assures us few people will be harmed — most enrollees have their premiums capped as a percentage of household income. Thus, it’s actually taxpayers who will get gouged. The article does admit that some people — those who are too wealthy to qualify for premium subsidies — may suffer sticker shock next November when they price their coverage for 2017.

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Jun 02, 2016 | 30 comments | by

Health Insurers Shift More Costs To Taxpayers In Obamacare Exchanges

money-burden(A version of this Health Alert was published by Forbes.)

America’s health insurers are undergoing a crisis of consensus with respect to their engagement with Obamacare. Between 2010 (when the Affordable Care Act was signed), and 2014 (the first year of taxpayer-subsidized coverage in the health insurance exchanges), it was widely understood that health insurers had scored a big win. After all, which other industry could get the federal government to pass a law mandating individuals purchase its product or service as a condition of residency in the United States?

This view was reflected in the stock market’s valuation of health insurers, which outperformed the S&P 500 Index. Since then, of course, we have learned that insurers have been losing money on Obamacare’s exchanges. Further, they have lost the sympathetic ear of the Congressional Republican majority, which has prevented insurers extracting as much taxpayer funding as they had expected from the Treasury. We should not expect insurers which continue to participate in exchanges to just keep losing money. In fact, the evidence indicates some insurers have quickly learned how to shift more costs onto taxpayers, despite failing to win an explicit political commitment to do so.

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May 04, 2016 | 15 comments | by

Obamacare’s Unintended Consequences: People Buy Short-Term Policies

woman-with-childObamacare has driven individual health insurance premiums up so high people are forgoing comprehensive coverage in favor of short-term policies:

Robin Herman, the 34-year-old owner of a marketing firm in San Francisco, bought a short-term policy in December. The monthly cost of her short-term coverage, plus conventional ACA-compliant plans for her two children, is roughly one-quarter of what she would have paid for conventional health plans covering all three of them, she says.

“This is saving me a ton of money for the year,” she said, despite the penalty. Plans that comply with the health law’s rules cost more than her old pre-ACA policy and are “just not affordable,” she said.

(Anna Wilde Mathews,” Sales of Short-Term Health Policies Surge,” Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2016.)

Sales of these policies have doubled or more since 2014, according to sources cited by Ms. Mathews. This surely feeds into the problem that Obamacare enrollees are sicker than expected: The healthy candidates are choosing these policies.

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Apr 19, 2016 | 20 comments | by

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association Confirms Obamacare Death Spiral

CAM00109The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, which represents 36 Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans covering 105 million Americans has released a study of its members’ claims data in Obamacare exchanges 2014 and 2015. It confirms Obamacare exchange enrollees are sicker and more expensive than enrollees in pre-Obamacare individual plans or employer-based plans:

Members who newly enrolled in BCBS individual health plans in 2014 and 2015 have higher rates of certain diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, depression, coronary artery disease, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Hepatitis C than individuals who had BCBS individual coverage prior to health-care reform.

Consumers who newly enrolled in BCBS individual health plans in 2014 and 2015 received significantly more medical care, on average, than those with BCBS individual plans prior to 2014 who maintained BCBS individual health coverage into 2015, as well as those with BCBS employer-based group health insurance.

The new enrollees used more medical services across all sites of care—including inpatient admissions, outpatient visits, medical professional services, prescriptions filled and emergency room visits.

Medical costs of care for the new individual market members were, on average, 19 percent higher than employer-based group members in 2014 and 22 percent higher in 2015. For example, the average monthly medical spending per member was $559 for individual enrollees versus $457 for group members in 2015.

These health plans have not done a great job containing costs in employer-based health plans either. Those policies’ average monthly health spending increased 8 percent in the first nine months of 2015 versus 2014. However, costs in individual policies increased 12 percent, half again as much. This means the gap in medical spending between the two markets is increasing.

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Apr 07, 2016 | 14 comments | by

All-Payer Claims Databases And Price Transparency

Hand Holding CashMost observers agree that it is very, very difficult for patients to choose health services wisely based on prices, because prices in U.S. health care are generally not transparent. The primary reason for this is that it has been many decades since health providers have relied on patients to pay their bills directly.

Instead, their business models rely on submitting claims to health insurers. Of course, there are convenient clinics and a few doctors and ambulatory clinics which post prices up front. However, the patient who enters the hospital – where most health costs are incurred – enters a maze of opaque and incomprehensible prices.

Some people believe price transparency can be commanded by government: Enter the “all-payer claims database,” which an increasing number of states are embracing. Every payer in the state reports its claims to this government-run database and the government can then publicly disclose what actual health prices are.

The momentum for all-payer claims databases just hit a road-block at the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual. This concerned a new Vermont law that compels payers to report their claims to the state’s all-payer claims database. The Supreme Court struck down the mandate, based on the doctrine of ERISA pre-emption. Whether that finding is right or not, I’ll leave to others to decide. This post challenges the very idea of all-payer claims databases.

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Mar 31, 2016 | 27 comments | by

The Interstate Health Insurance Compact: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

UptonIn a recent Health Alert, I noted the very positive news that House Speaker Paul Ryan has appointed six task forces, comprised of Congressional committee chairmen, to develop a governing agenda. One of those tax forces has a mandate to develop (finally) the Republican alternative to Obamacare.

Two of the members, Dr. Tom Price (Chairman of the Budget Committee) and Mr. Fred Upton (Chairman of the Energy & Commerce Committee) have already sponsored health reform bills that would replace Obamacare, and contain tax credits for individual health insurance. I conclude Dr. Price’s version is superior, both in administrative simplicity and economic effect.

However, Mr. Upton’s bill (which is sponsored in the Senate by Senator Hatch and Senator Burr) includes a good idea absent from Dr. Price’s bill: An interstate compact for health insurance.

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Feb 22, 2016 | 21 comments | by

Ted Cruz and Health Reform

CruzSenator Ted Cruz has won the Iowa Republican caucuses. Over the weekend, Chris Wallace of Fox News challenged Mr. Cruz on his proposal “to sell health insurance across state lines,” citing research published by NCPA that concludes federal action to mandate this would be ineffective. The research in question is on this blog, here and here.

We got quite a bit of feedback yesterday on this topic. As a think tank, we endorse policies, not politicians. Nevertheless, some of our audience took Mr. Wallace’s question to reflect opposition to Senator Cruz.

In fact, Senator Cruz’ proposal to sell health insurance across state lines does not appear in his presidential campaign platform. It is in a Senate bill he proposed last March, in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s decision in King v. Burwell.

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Feb 02, 2016 | 31 comments | by

Trouble Paying Medical Bills: 2015 Versus 2005

iStock_000007047153XSmallAfter having read my colleague Devon Herrick’s Health Alert discussing the New York Times’ survey (conducted with the Kaiser Family Foundation) of adults having trouble paying medical bills, I had a look back and compared the 2015 results to those a similar survey from 2005. The results are almost exactly the same!

Despite a large decrease in the proportion of working-age people categorized as “uninsured” (even though many have actually become dependent on Medicaid, a joint state-federal welfare program, instead of actual insurance) one quarter of us still have trouble paying medical bills.

  • In 2015, 15 percent spent “all or most” of their savings on medical bills. In 2005, it was 12 percent.
  • In 2015, 10 percent “borrowed money from friends or family” and nine percent “increased credit card debt.” In 2005, eight percent reported “borrowing money or taking out another mortgage.”
  • In 2015, 32 percent “put off/postponed getting health care you needed.” In 2005, 29 percent of adults report “they or someone in their household skipped medical treatment, cut pills, or did not fill a prescription in the past year because of the cost.”
  • In 2015, three percent declared personal bankruptcy because of medical bills, the same as 2005.

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Jan 12, 2016 | 13 comments | by
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