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.

Hartfordbusiness.com reports that on October 1 a new law will go into effect in Connecticut that regulates health discount plans.  Since April, the state department of insurance has received dozens of complaints about health discount plans, many times when people buy mistakenly thinking that they are buying health insurance.

Health discount plans provide discounts on medical bills (as much as 40% for some services while in some cases the discounts can be less than 25%)  from certain health care providers, however they do not reimburse providers on behalf of consumers the way health insurance plans do.

The new law requires that each health discount plan disclose to the state its contracts with marketers.  Plans have already been required to be licensed with the state in order to sell their plans in CT.

There has been controversy surrounding health discount plans in many states

Minnesota – 12 companies were ordered to cease operations in 2005, after using misleading advertising to trick customers into believing they were buying health insurance.

Montana — Prudent Choice was fined $150,000 and ordered to reimburse Montana residents who bought fraudulent health discount cards.

New York, South Dakota, Maryland and Florida have had similar problems with rogue marketers and their misleading sales tactics.

Over time many states will likely follow Connecticut’s lead and enact some type of legislation to protect health care consumers from aggressive sales tactics related to these plans.

If you are not precluded from purchasing a true health insurance plan due to preexisting health conditions,  you should opt for a major medical health plan, as opposed to a health discount plan.  There are many affordable health insurance options, that will provide protection as opposed to simply discounts.