Today, December 7th, is the end of the open enrollment period for Medicare recipients. Susan Jaffe from the KaiserHealthNews.org website reports that extensions are being offered to people who are unable to enroll due to wait times, but only by three days. A spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid claims that extensions will [...]
Archive for December, 2011
Retirees Sue New York Over Health Insurance Rates
Approximately 40,000 retired public sector employees have sued New York State over an increase in health insurance rates. The suit was recently filed in the Albany County State Supreme Court according to the article “Retirees Sue State Over Health Insurance Hike” by Rick Karlin found on TimesUnion.com. The president of the Retired Public Employees Association, [...]
Florida Health Choices Program
The Florida Health Choices Program was first conceived in 2008, and Florida legislators are finally hoping that the health plan for small businesses in Florida launches in July of next year (2012). The program essentially sets up an “exchange like” marketplace where employers and consumers would have a single point of access to compare health [...]
California Uninsured
A recently released report by America’s Health Rankings which measured the % of the adult population in each state that does not maintain health insurance coverage (either private or public) indicated that California has one of the highest uninsured rates in the country with 19.4% lacking health insurance. Ten years ago in 2001, California’s uninsured% [...]
Blue To You by Horizon BCBS
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey is looking to significantly increase person to person customer service according to the press release found on MarketWatch. The member-focused program is called “Blue to You” and involves the use of a multi-purpose van driving through neighborhoods in New Jersey. The Horizon Blue to You mobile van [...]
Inland Empire Low Income Health Plans
San Bernardino & Riverside counties are set to launch new low-income health plans pending sign-off on paperwork by Federal Government. Leadership of both counties believe that the plans could be live by January 1 2012. San Bernardino’s plan is called Arrowcare, while Riverside Counties plan is named Riverside County Healthcare. Both plans will cover residents [...]
Medicare Covering Obesity Counseling
Medicare has recently put a lot of focus on preventative health measures to help bring down overall healthcare costs and obesity has been a hot topic. The federal government believes that around 30% of its Medicare population falls into the obese category and this greatly contributes to expensive health issues such as diabetes and heart [...]
Chinese Community Health Plan Prescription Service
Chinese Community Health Plan (CCHP) effective Jan 1 2012 will transition its pharmacy benefits management company Navitus Health Solutions so that its members will not experience any interruption of service resulting from Walgreens ongoing dispute with Express Scripts. Beginning Jan 1, Express Scripts customers will not be able to utilize Walgreen’s to get their prescriptions [...]
Health Blue Living by BCBSM
Health Blue Living is a wellness based HMO that was launched five years ago by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Since then nearly 500k Michigan residents have enrolled in the health plan. The plan provides discounts in monthly premium to he employee if they achieve goals such as lowering BMI, or quitting smoking for [...]
