Health Insurance Blog

In JD Power & associates 2009 rankings of the top health plans in Ohio, Medical Mutual took top honors.  Based on JD Power surveys, Medical Mutual of Ohio is among the best health plans in the country.

Humana is the 2nd best health plan in Ohio according to this study of well over 100 health plans nationally, and also among the best in the country.  Other Ohio health plans that were rated include:  Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield & Aetna which were both rated as average, and CIGNA & UnitedHealthCare which were rated as below average.

More information about Ohio health insurance.

US News Top Ohio Health Plans

JD Power & Associates ranked Humana the top rated health plan in Texas for 2009, in overall customer experience.  In addition to being rated as the top health plan in Texas, The Humana health plan that operates in Texas was rated as being among the best in the nation ( 5 out of 5 stars).

Other private health plans that faired well included CIGNA & Aetna who each received 4 of 5 stars, which denotes them as being better than most.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas was rated as below average, one of the few Blue Cross Blue Shield member health plans that did not fair well in the JD Power survey.  BCBSTX was rated below average.

More information about Texas health insurance.

The state of Florida was not included in the Southeast region when J.D. Powers ranked the top health plans in the Southeast, in their rating of the top health plans in 17 distinct regions, Florida is its own region.  That being said, J.D. Power and Associates rated Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida as the top rated health plan in Florida.

BCBSFL was rated as being among the best health plans in the country, as was Humana, coming in just behind the Florida Blue Cross Blue Shield plan.

Other Florida health plans that were rated as part of this study included UnitedHealthCare, CIGNA, and Aetna.  UnitedHealthCare was given 4 stars out of 5 in overall experience (better than most) while CIGNA & Aetna were given 2 stars, a below average rating.

More about Florida health insurance.

J.D. Power and Associates rating of the top health plans for the South East Central region lists two health plans tied for the top spot for 2009 - Anthem Blue Cross Blue shield of Kentucky and BlueCross BlueShield of Alabama.

CIGNA & Humana finished close behind while still receiving designation as being among the nations best.

Aetna & Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee were rated as “about average” while  United HealthCare and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi were rated below average.

JD Power and Associates recently released their 2009 Health Plan Ratings.  The ratings are based on the results of a study which includes responses from more than 33,000 members of private health insurance plans.   The members were surveyed online in December 2008 and January 2009.

More than 130 health plans were included in the study which breaks down the results into 17 distinct regions across the country.  The study itself examined seven key factors:

1. Health coverage and benefits
2. Provider choice
3. Health information and communication
4. Health insurance claims processing
5. Statements
6. Customer service, and
   
7. Approval processes

Some of the Health insurance plans that ranked highest in their respective regions included…Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kentucky , BlueCross BlueShield of Arizona, Health Alliance Plan (HAP), Humana, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, and Medical Mutual of Ohio among others.

Over the next few weeks we will be providing more of the regional results from this study.

John Dorchner reports in the Miami Herald that the state might consider a bill that would require gender equity in Florida health insurance premiums. Florida’s insurance consumer advocate Sean Shaw is looking to team up with a congressperson that would sponsor legislation that would ban the practice of gender rating. Women pay higher premiums than men, even when you exclude maternity coverage.

For example, a Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida policy for a 30-year-old in Miami costs $246 for a man and $291 for a woman. Insurers claim that women use more health care services and are more likely to keep up with regular screenings; some believe that’s a perverse incentive to forgo preventative care.

However, due to that higher level of utilization, older women are in better health and have lower health insurance premiums than their male counterparts. Using the BCBSFL example above, a 60-year-old Miami woman pays a monthly premium of $593, while a man of the same age pays $644.

A recent research brief written by Deborah Donahue of Mark Farrah and Associates provides commentary on the recent growth of Medicare Advantage Plans.

According to the report more than 225,000 americans enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans during the most recent open enrollment period, and total enrollment stands at roughly 10.5 Million nationally.

The top 10 Medicare Advantage carriers (in terms of enrollment) maintain just over 60% market share, of which Humana and UnitedHealth Group maintain more than half (30% market share between them).

The 10 Largest Medicare Advantage Organizations

1. UnitedHealth 16% Marketshare
2. Humana 14%
3. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan 9%
4. Wellpoint 4%
5. Coventry Health Care 4%
6. Aetna 4%
7. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan 3%
8. Health Net 3%
9. Highmark 3%
10. Wellcare Health Plan 2%

In addition, 9 new Medicare Advantage Organizations began doing business in 2009 and 6 ceased operations.

Other health insurance plans for seniors include Medicare Supplement plans.

The top four providers of Florida health insurance recently met to discuss health care under a Barack Obama administration, says Jeremy Cox of the Jacksonville Times-Union. Representatives from Humana, UnitedHealth, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, and Aetna were in attendance.

The insurers believe that President Obama should enact a health insurance mandate for all Americans if, as they predict, he will require insurers to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions. They think that the cost will be prohibitive for carriers otherwise. At the moment, Obama has not publicly supported a mandate, and how exactly one would be carried out is unknown. He has supported a role for the private sector in universal health care, but that role will most likely be a change from the current market.

Instead of the plans Obama and congressional Democrats have proposed for health care reform, the insurance companies would prefer that the government focus mainly on enrolling eligible but currently uninsured individuals in federal-run programs like Medicaid and Medicare, Jeremy says. While the insurance companies agreed that greater coverage is a priority, they claim the task of covering other Americans should be left to them through innovative new plans.

Women of child-bearing age (19 to 55 years old) pay more for health insurance than men, says Linda A. Firestone, Ph.D in the Sun-Sentinel. A typical woman’s policy includes maternity coverage, which accounts for the gender disparity in insurance rates. Since the majority of American adult women eventually have children, health insurance with maternity coverage makes sense for them–especially if there are pregnancy or birth complications.

Group health insurance plans (for example, those provided by employers) in Florida do not allow women to opt out of maternity coverage. If a woman does not plan to have children, she can choose to buy one of many individual health plans, which allow her to opt out of maternity coverage. In fact, many insurance providers (such as Humana), no longer offer maternity coverage in their plans. Insurance specialist Larry Wides says the cost savings from a group plan tend to cancel out the reduced premiums resulting from the elimination of maternity coverage.

As promised we will be breaking the US News and World Report health plan rankings down into the state level, to account for differences in health plan regulations, and mandated benefits in each state which can skew results.

According to the report:

The top 10 Ohio Health Plans are:

1. Summacare
2. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Ohio
3. Paramount Health Care
4. Medical Mutual of Ohio
5. CIGNA Healthcare of Ohio
6. The Health Plan of the Upper Ohio Valley
7. Aetna Health of Ohio
8. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Ohio
9. UnitedHealthcare of Ohio
10. Humana Health Plan of Ohio

We will be posting the top 10 health plans in each state over the next several weeks (3-5 states per day), so check back frequently if you don’t see your states health insurance rankings listed yet.