Health Insurance Blog

A recent press release from HealthAmerica has announced that Advantra, the HealthAmerica Medicare Advantage plan, is ranked among the top 20 best Medicare and commercial health care plans in the 2008 “America’s Best Health Plans” list. Advantra was ranked #18 out of over 200 plans.

The survey was conducted by U.S. News & World Report and the National Committee for Quality Assurance. It consists of the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (which provides standardized performance measures), as well as the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers. The results are published in the November 17th issue of the magazine.

The HealthAmerica and Advantra plans scored above the national average on 15 measures of patient satisfaction and medical services (e.g. treatment of certain diseases, health care access, preventative care, and prenatal care covered by maternity coverage). The HealthAmerica health care plans also scored higher than the Pennsylvania state average on 12 of those measures.

(Photo credit: Waldo Jaquith under CC 2.0)

The top health insurance plans in Kansas for 2008, based on the annual US News and World Report rankings are listed below.   Rankings are based on a scale of 1 to 100, and are based on the following categories:  1) Consumer assessment 2) Prevention and 3) Treatment.

1. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, Good Health HMO (82.7 of 100)
2. United Healthcare of the Midwest (82.0)
3. CIGNA Healthcare of Kansas/Missouri (81.7)
4. Aetna Health - Missouri (81.1)
5. Humana Healthplan of Kansas City (79.9)
6. Community Health Plan (67.6)
7. Coventry Health Care (66.9)

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City (BCBSKC), the top rated Kansas Health Insurance Plan, ranked very well in the customer assessment category, and within that category, got outstanding scores with their handling of claims processing.

United HealthCare Group announced the introduction of new individual health insurance plans being offered by their subsidiary Golden Rule Insurance Company.  The New health plans will initially be available in a twenty state footprint*, with more states to be added in the future.  The plans will be marketed under the UnitedHealthOne brand.

The new health plans are designed to give the customer more choices and control over their health care spending.

Health insurance shoppers who enroll in these new plans will have

• new co-insurance and deductible choices
• a 24 month rate guarantee option
• preventative care for the HSA plan options
• a new HSA plan with direct billing options

* Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin, as well as the District of Columbia.

A recent research report has shown that the number of uninsured children in Indiana has decreased from 162,000 to 131,000.   In addition, the number of uninsured could go down even lower as of the 8% of Indiana children that go without health insurance coverage, about 48% are eligible for Hoosier Healthwise, Indiana’s state sponsored health insurance program for children.

In any event, Indiana children are insured at a higher rate than the national average.  Nationally, approximately 11% or 8.6 Million of this nations children go without health insurance coverage.

In addition to state sponsored programs for uninsured children, Indiana also has a new state sponsored plan for low income families that is aimed at adults called Healthy Indiana Plan.  Currently over 35,000 Indiana residents have enrolled in thise program.

More information about Indiana Health Insurance.

(Lisa Girion, Los Angeles Times)

Individuals with employer-provided health insurance now pay, on average, over $1,000 in deductibles. That is an increase of over 17% from last year, when they paid $859. Employees with preferred provider organizations (PPOs) are primarily affected, as well as those working for small businesses.

Employers are increasing deductibles in order to reduce costs without changing premiums. Medical costs for a worker are currently $8,482 per year (an increase of 6.3%), and are expected to increase further in the coming years. As a result, many people are forgoing preventative care such as checkups, which could end up causing even higher costs in the long run.

If you are paying too much in deductibles, get free health insurance quotes from multiple providers.

Health Insurance industry representatives presented to Congress yesterday that they would support legislation that would require insurers to accept all applicants (guaranteed issue), but they would also seek legislation that requires all Americans to obtain health insurance coverage.

To date two prominent members of the health insurance industry, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) have drafted separate proposals that call for mandates making both of the requirements mentioned above.

Conversely, the Council for Affordable Health Insurance (CAHI) remains opposed to reforms that mandate guaranteed issue because “they invite the government to micromanage health insurance policies, reduce consumer choices and dramatically drive up the cost of health insurance coverage”

Posting the top Pennsylvania Health Plans (as ranked by US News and World Report in Conjunction with NCQA) is the 6th state in the series here at healthinsurancesort.com.  Previous state rankings have been posted for the following midwestern states:  Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin.

According to the 2008 rankings:  the top Pennsylvania health insurance plans were:

1. Geisinger Health Plan- The #5 ranked health plan nationally received outstanding scores on all measures (customer assessment, prevention, and treatment)
2. HealthAmerica Pennsylvania/HealthAssurance Pennsylvania - A Coventry HealthCare Company
3. UPMC Health Plans
4. Keystone Health Plan (Central)
5. Keystone Health Plan (West)
6. Capital Advantage Insurance Company
7. Keystone Health Plan East
8. CIGNA
9. Aetna Health
10. First Priority Health

Pennsylvania is a fragmented market for health insurers, with many insurers covering a service area focusing on a region within Pennsylvania.  Blue Cross Blue Shield has several different licensees that do business within the state including the three regional Keystone plans listed below.

In the recently released US News & World Report commercial health plan rankings (which takes into account both customer satisfaction and a number of different healthcare related measures such as disease prevention), The top 10 Wisconsin health insurance plans were ranked as follows.

1. Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin - driven by very high scores in both disease prevention and treatment
2. Security Health Plan of Wisconsin
3. Unity Health Plans
4. Network Health Plan
5. Dean Health Plan
6. Medical Associates Health Plan
7. WPS Health Plan
8. Medica - Serving Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota
9. United HealthCare
10. Humana

Not all of the Wisconsin health plans listed above offer individual health plans (non-group health coverage), if you are a Wisconsin resident and shopping for a health plan for you and your family, you can find more information about Wisconsin health plans for individuals here.

Select Health, a non profit health insurer serving Utah and Idaho, has launched a premium assistance program that will supplement the existing SelectHealth Kids Plan, and reduce monthly premiums by 40-60% for qualifying residents.

Utah’s children’s health insurance program (CHIP) currently provides a low cost health insurance plan to families in need who have uninsured children, however many families fall through the cracks of these state sponsored health insurance plans across the country because they make too much money to qualify for Medicaid and other Government funded programs.

Select Health’s premium assistance program reduces the avg monthly premiums to $25-$50 a month and qualification is based on household income combined with family size.  Approval into the program qualifies the family for 12 months of assistance, after the 12 months is up, families must apply for acceptance again.

For more information interested parties can call toll free 1-800-442-3125.

Kaiser Permanente now offers a subsidized individual health insurance plan that costs as low as $20 per month.  The plan is called Bridge Community Health Plan.  The Bridge plan targets individuals and families who are experiencing tough times but make too much money to qualify for government sponsored programs like Medicare of Medicaid.

Kaiser Permanente subsidizes 90 to 95% of the monthly premium as a community benefit.

The Bridge Plan offers up to 3 years of comprehensive health coverage to qualified individuals & families.  Applicants must live in the Washington D.C. and Baltimore metropolitan areas.  To determine eligibility, interested parties can contact 866-456-5902.