Health Insurance Blog

According to the Hartford Currant, 60,000 Connecticut families enrolled in the HUSKY Health Insurance Program, were notified recently that they must switch to a new managed care network by February 1, 2009.

The network change requirement is taking place because HUSKY is ending its relationship with Anthem Blue Care.  Anthem withdrew from the bidding process last March but has continued to provide coverage to HUSKY members since.

Critics of the required network change contend that the two other managed care networks Americhoice and Aetna Better Health do not include enough physicians.

More information about the HUSKY Health Insurance Program and other Connecticut Health Insurance Plans.

RedOrbit recently reported that after many states have seen a significant increase in Medicaid enrollment since the beginning of the recession (Connecticut has seen a 6% increase this year), governors have asked Congress and President-Elect Barack Obama to help them pay for the publicly funded health insurance plan. The governors are petitioning for $40 billion to cover a shortfall in projected tax revenues, which would be a two-year long increase in the percentage Washington D.C. kicks in for medical funding. As of the 2007 fiscal year the federal goverment covers 57% of Medicaid costs while individual states cover the rest.

Medicaid is offered to children and the extremely poor; about 1 in 6 low income individuals in America are enrolled. Rising unemployment has resulted in more people being eligible for Medicaid, while at the same time state governments are suffering from lower tax revenues. Unlike the federal government, states aren’t allowed to run a budget deficit. If the states don’t recieve this funding, they will either have to cut programs or raise taxes in order to balance their budgets. While most unemployed individuals can buy into group health insurance plans, the majority cannot afford the premiums without an employer paying some part of them.

Autism affects thousands of American families every day. In most cases, families must go into debt to pay for the comprehensive therapy they feel their children need; behavioral therapy is not covered by most insurance. Utah state senator Howard Stephenson and state representative Roger Barrus (both R) plan to change all that. In January, they will introduce a bill in the state legislature that would mandate providers of Utah health insurance to cover treatment for autism.

In the Salt Lake Tribune, Heather May outlined the provisions of this bill:

• The bill will only cover treatment for autistic children under 5 years of age, because that’s when therapy is said to have the greatest impact.
• The type of treatment covered by the bill is most likely to be ABA therapy (applied behavior analysis), which consists of up to 40 hours a week of one-on-one therapy that helps autistic children learn to communicate and teaches them appropriate social skills. ABA is widely considered to be effective, but it has been criticized by some for being an unproven method.
• Companies that are self-insured, as well as the federal government, will be excluded from the health care coverage mandate.
• The insurance will have a $30,000 annual cap, as well as a lifetime cap.
• The bill will also require families to contribute financially.

California’s state sponsored health insurance program for working poor and uninsured children received a last minute contribution from First 5 California.  The $16.8 Million contribution will allow Healthy Families California to continue accepting new members through June of ‘09.  Without this last minute lifeline, an estimated 162,000 California children would have went without health insurance for at least the next six months.

The Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board, which runs the Healthy Families program, had scheduled a meeting for today December 17th  to limit new enrollments into the health care program, which currently provides California health insurance for 900,000 children who would otherwise be uninsured.

First 5 California is an organization that is tasked with improving the healthcare of young children in California.

Ohio is one of only two US states that are planning on expanding their publicly funded health insurance programs (such as Medicaid and Healthy Start Ohio).  The other state planning to do so is West Virginia.  19 Other states are making cuts to their programs, or are considering doing so.

Although the state hasn’t made a firm spending commitment, they have received approval to expand the children’s health insurance program in 2009.

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.

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.

In an attempt to close the $11 Billion budget cap this year, the state of California is considering putting a freeze on Healthy Families, California’s state sponsored health insurance plan for children.

Nearly a million California children are enrolled in Healthy Families that would not have health insurance coverage otherwise.

The Healthy Families Program is $17 Million over budget, as enrollment is growing by 27,000 new children each month, largely due to the tough economic climate and growing unemployment.

Freezing enrollment in the program is clearly not a desired action to address the budget shortfall, and although President Elect Obama is making children’s healthcare a priority, a decision will need to be made regarding this programs solvency before he takes office in January.

A recent study undertaken by online health insurance marketplace ehealthinsurance.com found that individual health insurance can indeed be affordable if you shop around.

Specifically, the study of more than 225,000 individual and family health plans purchased through their site found that the average monthly premium to insure an individual was $158, and more than half of those underlying policies had a monthly premium of less than $130!  When insuring a family, the average monthly premium was $366 with more than half paying less than $300 per month.

To build on a previous health insurance study that was blogged about here, women paid more for their health insurance coverage, 18% more to be exact.  On average women paid $171 per month while men paid $145 on average.

Other findings:

• 60% of children’s health plans had monthly premiums of less than $100.  These do not include state sponsored and subsidized children’s health plans which have income limits for qualification.
• Regionally the Midwest was the cheapest region with average monthly premiums of $130, followed by the West region ($150), South ($154), and Northeast ($239)
• Average monthly premium for HSA health plans was $133

Revamping the maligned US health care system was a focal point of President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign, and he will now be tasked with making good on that promise amid a significant economic downturn.

Obama’s plan is to expand Government health programs as well as subsidize health insurance coverage for people who can’t afford it, and technology spending to computerize health records to save money.  This plan to fix the health care system is priority #2 behind only achieving energy independence through further developing alternative energy sources.

Many experts think that change will be incremental but not substantial right off the bat, with the focus on expanding existing programs that assist low-income families maintain health insurance for their families such as children’s health insurance programs, which currently subsidize health insurance for 6 million children across he country.  Expanding programs such as SCHIP and Medicaid would help the health insurers that run the plans, such as Wellpoint, and United HealthCare.  Alternatively, reducing reimburesements  to insurers for Medicare Advantage enrollees would hurt health insurance companies such as Humana and Aetna, who would likely make up the difference in the form of health insurance premiums and/or reduced benefits.