Florida Health Insurance Bill Signed
Bill Kaczor’s article “Crist signs Fla. health insurance bill” from the Miami Herald site, discusses new Florida health insurance legislation. According to this article the new law (SB 1122) requires insurance companies to send payments to out-of-network doctors instead of the patient.
Gov. Charlie Crist signed the legislation Wednesday making it law. He said that sometimes when insurance payments were sent to the patients directly, the patient would keep the money and not pay their medical bills. Because of this many providers are reluctant to accept out-of-network patients and reducing health care access by limiting patient doctor choices. The new law may also reduce fraud by cutting out the middle man. The payment will only get transferred once, instead of twice.
Consumer advocate coalitions urged that the bill be vetoed. They argued that the new law may increase out of pocket costs for individuals and remove an incentive for doctors to have discounts available for in-network services. This could potentially lead to higher premiums for in-network and out-of-network patients. Walter Dartland, the executive director of the Consumer Federation of the Southeast believes that if you have health insurance the new bill will cost you money in the long run.
