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A new report from America’s Health Insurance Plans has shown that enrollment in high-deductible plans is on the rise; MedPageToday.com reports that enrollment increased by 25 percent in the past year, “bringing the total enrollment in those plans to 10 million.”
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A new survey revealed that a majority of “big employers plan to shift a larger share of health-care costs to their workers next year,” reports David S. Hilzenrath from The Washington Post. The survey found that 56 percent of employers plan to make their employees pay more of the costs next year. A lot of companies say they might “charge more to cover spouses, tighten eligibility standards for their health plans and dispense financial rewards or penalties based on the results of certain lab tests,” states Hilzenrath. Some companies even say that overweight employees might be excluded from the most desirable plans.
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A new study showed that if healthcare reform doesn’t pass, rural residents will suffer substantially. Lynda Waddington from The Iowa Independent states, “Jon Bailey, director of the rural research and analysis program at the Center and author of the study, believes that existing health care policy, or lack of it, places rural people at a disadvantage that will worsen if steps are not taken by Congress.” Bailey went on to say that “the benefits far outweigh the risks of inaction.”
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For heart patient Frank Amend, an engineer from North Carolina, his heaviest expense is healthcare, unlike the average American family whose mortgage would be at the top of the list as their biggest expense. Reuters states, “That’s why Amend and tens of thousands of patients with similar conditions find themselves at the center of debate over how to reform the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare sector — and whether the country can afford it.”
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According to the Los Angeles Times, on Thursday the parent of Anthem Blue Cross attempted to justify large premium increases for individual policies, however, “critics – including the Obama administration – voiced skepticism.” The Los Angeles Times reports, “In a letter to the administration, health insurance giant WellPoint Inc. of Indianapolis said that increases of as much as 39%, set to take effect March 1, reflect soaring medical costs and an exodus of healthy consumers from its ranks.”
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Anthem Blue Cross, California’s largest for-profit insurer, was asked by California insurance regulators to postpone problematic rate increases for individual policies. These rate increases, some as much as 39%, have “triggered widespread criticism from subscribers and brokers — and now from the federal government,” reports Duke Helfand from the Los Angeles Times. The Obama administration requested that Anthem justify these rate increases, and according to Helfand, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “voiced serious concern [in a letter to Anthem's president] over the higher premiums, which go into effect March 1 for many of the insurer’s estimated 800,000 individual policyholders.”
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Experts say California might have to go solo on extending healthcare coverage to the millions of uninsured Californians because “the future of federal overhaul efforts appears uncertain,” reports California Healthline. Nearly 7 million people are uninsured in California, and about the same amount of people are enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program, Medi-Cal. “Although federal health care reform could extend coverage to more Californians, it also could burden the cash-strapped state with additional Medi-Cal costs,” states California Healthline.
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Andrew Rubin from The Huffington Post says he is upset about healthcare reform failing, but is most upset that many Americans are unaware of what has actually happened. He says, “Sure, they know the Senate and House reform bills were expensive. They certainly know that there are among 30 to 50 million Americans without health insurance coverage… We should also not forget about the 25 million under insured, most of whom do not even realize it until they actually get sick.”
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St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan has been helping people for over 150 years, and has “treated victims of calamities, from the cholera epidemic of 1849 to the sinking of the Titanic, the 9/11 terrorist attack and, just last year, the Hudson River landing of US Airways Flight 1549,” reports Anemona Hartocollis from The New York Times. However, the hospital is now struggling to stay alive, and a big chain of hospitals has “proposed to take over St. Vincent’s, shut down its inpatient beds and most of its emergency room services, and convert it into an outpatient center tied into the chain’s own hospitals uptown and across town to the east,” states Hartocollis. If St. Vincent’s were to be taken over, it could be the end of the last Roman Catholic general hospital in New York City.
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