Health Insurance Blog

According to the article “Overhauling Healthcare is Too Big For Texas” by Mitchell Schnurman on star-telegram.com, Texas is trying to solve the giant health care issue on its own but slowly realizing they may not be able to do so.

Texas health insurance has many opportunities and Governor Rick Perry is trying to do something about it, but hasn’t figured out the magic bullet just yet.  In 2007, he pushed a health care concept to Washington but it didn’t work out.  Texas has over 2.1 million low income adults who do not have health insurance.  An additional 4 million in Texas are also uninsured and about $12 billion in yearly hospital bills go unpaid. 

Unfortunately, health reform will cost Texas tens of billions of dollars if it attempted to cover most of its uninsured residents.  Texas is in better shape financially than most other states, but still cannot do it on their own despite prior proposals to attempt this.  Funding will have to come from a national level and Texas desperately needs their share of the dollars that will be spent. 

BlueCross BlueShield of Texas (BCBSTX) published a memo on their website that covers where they stand on the much talked about health care reform debate going on in Washington.  BCBSTX does believe strongly that health care reform is in fact needed and affordable health insurance should be available to all Americans. 

On the table currently is Obama’s plan to have a government run insurance plan to compete with private insurers.  BCBSTX believes a government run plan would eventually push out private insurers and eliminate the benefits of competition.  This could lead to a system where government controls access to health care as well as sets all payments.

BCBSTX supports a plan that would require health insurance companies to give coverage to all applicants.  They believe this will only work if every American is required by law to have health insurance.  They also support research to determine which medical advancements are most worth while determined by an independent entity.

For more information on where BCBSTX stands on the health care reform debate visit their website. 

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.

According to a report released by the U.S. Census Bureau, in the United States in aggregate roughly 17% of the population (under age 65) goes without health insurance coverage.

Texas had the highest % of their state residents  go uninsured than any other state as 26.3% of Texas residents (under age 65) went without health insurance coverage.  New Mexico and Florida claimed the next highest levels of uninsured with 24.2% and 24.0% respectively.

The states with the lowest uninsured % include Minnesota 9.5%, Hawaii 9.7%, Wisconsin 10.3%, and Iowa 10.4%.

The U.S. Census report also broke down uninsured numbers across racial lines.  The broad findings as they relate to race found that Hispanics are far more likely to go without health insurance than either whites or African-Americans.  More specifically, in Texas for instance, over 40% of Hispanics went without health insurance, while the African-American uninsured % was 24% and 16% for whites.

On a positive note, nationally the Hispanic uninsured % declined from 34% (15.3 Million) to 32% (14.8 Million) from 2006 to 2007.  In addition, the number of uninsured children decreased from 8.7 Million to 8.1 Million.

The tremendous disparity in uninsured levels by state to state can be partly explained by health insurance mandates that exist on the state level that drive health insurance premiums.   States that have more expensive mandated benefits, for example, might require health insurance companies to charge significantly higher health insurance premiums in that state pricing out many more individuals and families form purchasing individual health plans.  This is precisely what McCain’s health reform plan is seeking to eliminate by creating a national health insurance marketplace and allowing customers to purchase health insurance plans from other states if they offer a health plan that is a better fit for their health care needs and budget.

UnitedHealthCare has launched a health plan in Texas designed specifically to help enhance the well-being of Spanish speaking Hispanics and their families.

The plan called PlanBien, includes culturally relevant information and programs tailored to meet the health care needs of Hispanics such as:

1.  Specialized educational materials printed in Spanish.

2.  Bilingual photo stories depicting how a family discusses common health concerns;

3.  Trained and certified bilingual customer service representatives available to answer questions and locate Spanish-speaking doctors for particiapnts

4. A bilingual provider directory that lists physician offices with Spanish-speaking doctors, and more.

PlanBien is currently  available to small and medium-sized businesses in select markets in Texas, including San Antonio, Austin, and Houston, as well as labor organizations and public-sector entities.  PlanBien is currently not offered as part of an individual health insurance plan, but possibly will be in the future.

For more information about individual health insurance in Texas.

More information about Latino Health Solutions, visit UnitedHealthcare’s bilingual Web site, www.uhclatino.com.