Health Insurance Blog

Last week Humana announced that they were expanding the footprint of their Humana One short term health insurance plans to five additional states.  The five new states include Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and georgia.

The Humana One short term individual health insurance plan is now available in twenty states.  Like most short term health insurance coverage, these plans can be purchased for as little as 30 days or as much as 1 year.

Short term health insurance plans are designed primarily for recent college graduates who are job hunting, adults who are in-between jobs or recent retires who are not yet eligible for Medicare related products.

Humana also offers a portfolio of individual health insurance plans that are not short term in nature and can be held for indefinite periods of time.

J.D. Powers & Associates rated the top private health plans in the heartland states (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota), and the results were as follows.

Similar to many of the other 17 regions in the JD Power Survey, a Blue Cross Blue Shield health plan took top honors.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska was named the top health plan in this region based on overall customer experience and among the best in the nation.

Three other Blue Cross plans were rated as “better than most”  (4 stars out of 5 in overall experience):  BCBS Kansas, Wellmark BCBS Iowa, and BCBS Kansas City.

Health plans Aetna, CIGNA, UnitedHealthCare, and Coventry Healthcare were rated as being below average.

More information about health insurance in the heartland states:  Nebraska health insurance, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota

According to Emily Coleman of The Missourian, a state legislator is planning to introduce a bill that would require Missouri health insurance companies to cover diagnosis and treatment of infertility. Steve Hodges (D) is trying again, after failing to get a hearing for a similar bill last year. 

It is unclear whether the bill would make the insurers’ infertility coverage also apply to men. Emily says that the inspiration for this bill is a recent study finding that males from Columbia, Mo. had lower sperm counts than those from major American cities, possibly due to pesticides used in the farming town. (However, all of the men in the study were still fertile.) Men could go to a fertility clinic for an inexpensive, fast analysis and have the non-invasive procedure covered by insurance if the bill is passed with such a provision. 

(Photo credit: ksr8s under CC 2.0)

Continuing on our coverage of the US News and World Report national health insurance company rankings.  We will break down the top Missouri Health Insurance Plans.   According to the report, Missouri health plans do not fare well when compared to other health insurance companies across the nation as the top rated health plan, CIGNA Healthcare of St. Louis, ranks just 64th nationally.

The complete ranking of Missouri health plans is as follows:

1. CIGNA Healthcare of St. Louis (64th Nationally)
2. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City (109th)
3. UnitedHealthcare of the Midwest (134th)
4. CIGNA HealthCare of Kansas/Missouri (147th)
5. Aetna Health (165th)
6. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield Missouri (181st)
7. Humana Health Plan (188th)
8. Group Health Plan (223rd)
9. Community Health Plan (225th)
10. Mercy Health Plan (226th)