Health Insurance Blog

Today’s edition of the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report newsletter highlighted a sobering statistic about Pennsylvania health insurance: over one million residents lack it! According to the study, conducted last year:

• More than 8% of the state’s population is uninsured, compared to 7.5% in 2004.
• The number of uninsured children in Pennsylvania increased 5%, to 140,000.
• 880,000 Pennsylvanian adults are without health insurance, up 17%.

The Fort Mill Times is reporting that two state congresspersons have proposed expanding Minnesota health insurance to more children through the state’s MinnesotaCare program. MinnesotaCare is aimed towards working poor individuals and their children. The possible costs of such a move have not been detailed.

These proposed changes would no longer require parents to pay premiums for their child’s health care if they fall below a certain poverty level. The program has also been opened up to families unable to afford private health insurance, regardless of whether their incomes are above that level. In addition, the enrollment waiting period has been eliminated, so kids can be covered immediately.

Senator Linda Berglin and Representative Paul Thissen, both Democrats, are co-sponsors of the bill. Their goal is for needy individuals to have greater access to children’s health insurance.

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.

Keith L. Martin of the Insurance and Financial Advisor just reported on a new proposal by Governor David Paterson regarding New York health insurance. He wants to expand health care coverage by mandating that health insurance companies cover policy dependents up to age 29, at the policyholder’s own expense. Currently, parents’ health insurance plans in New York state cover their children until they are either 18 if they aren’t enrolled in college, or 22 years old if they are.

This age group is at increased risk for being without health insurance: many 19-to-29 year olds are either unemployed and struggling to find jobs, laid off, or working in positions that don’t offer health insurance. Individual health plans are usually far more expensive than group coverage.

Paterson’s legislation will address those issues, in addition to possible provisions for any grandchildren of the policyholder. Keith says that this proposal is a step towards universal health care reform by controlling medical costs and including a large group of generally healthy people in the pool to spread risk. This demographic is a low-risk pool for insurers, but could have a negative effect on smaller employers.

(Photo credit: jimbowen0306 under CC 2.0)

Kay Lazar from the Boston Globe is reporting that the Massachusetts Department of Revenue is raising the monentary penalties charged to individuals without Massachusetts health insurance.

The fines are levied monthly. If an adult over the age of 27 and earns over $31,212 per year, as of 2009 they will now have to pay $1,086 per year for being uninsured. An uninsured adult from 18 to 26 years of age making that amount must pay penalties totaling $624 per year. There is a sliding scale for individuals with lower salaries; people making less than $15,612 are eligible for health care subsidized by the state and therefore don’t have to pay any penalty.

The state of Massachusetts passed a 2006 law that requires all adults (age 18 or over) to have health insurance if the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority determines they can afford it. The policy is intended as a way to transition the state to universal healthcare. Kay quotes a Dept. of Revenue commissioner, who says that last year, 5% of adults that are required to buy health insurance didn’t obtain coverage.

(Photo credit: wallyg under CC 2.0)

Kevin Freking from the Associated Press has just reported the reaction to President-Elect Barack Obama’s health care plan from America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). AHIP is the leading health insurance industry trade group.

At the National Press Club, AHIP announced that it generally supports the Obama administration’s ideas for health care reform. However, they strongly oppose a proposed requirement that large- and medium-size employers must either contribute to their employees’ health insurance or pay a percentage of payroll to a national insurance plan. President and CEO Karen Ignagni claims that given the current state of the economy, any sort of employer mandate is a bad idea.

AHIP also doesn’t support comprehensive coverage mandates imposed by the states, preferring a national plan for small businesses that covers essential services such as emergency and primary care. This plan would exclude services that significantly increase monthly insurance premiums and those that insurers consider unproven. Consumer advocate groups believe that this will reduce the effectiveness of individual health coverage.

Politicians and industry representatives agree that they would like changes in health care policy to happen soon, before the new administration gets distracted by other issues.

There has been a considerable amount of discussion surrounding the health care proposals from presidential candidates Obama & McCain, however state-level health care plans haven’t received much attention.

Arizona in particular has a health care initiative on the ballot called Arizona Proposition 101.  If this proposition were to pass, the state of Arizona would be blocked from enacting a universal health care plan.  Essentially it would block Arizona from moving towards a health care platform like the one that is currently in place in Massachusetts, which requires all residents to purchase health insurance or pay a fine.  In addition, if Proposition 101 passes it will serve as a basis for a legal challenge should the federal government move towards a national health insurance mandate.

More information about health insurance in Arizona.

Senator Barack Obama has not released specific details about his health care reform plan, although he has stated that universal health care is his ultimate goal.

The Commonwealth Fund has released a detailed plan which they claim is very similar to Obama’s plan. and it can be inferred that the it can be used to fill in the blanks for the missing pieces within Obama’s Plan.

One of those “blanks” that the Commonwealth Fund has outlined is a “Play-or-Pay mandate” on employers,  I.e. companies that do not provide employer-sponsored health coverage to their employees will be penalized with taxes.   The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) estimates that this would amount to an additional 7% payroll tax.

John Goodman, the President of the NCPA says

During the Democratic primary, Sen. Obama criticized Sen. Clinton’s proposal to mandate health coverage by asserting she would try to force people to buy something they cannot afford and then tax them when they don’t buy it leaving them worse off than they were.  Exactly the same criticism applies to Obama’s pay-or-play mandate.

Goodman went on to say that

A tax on labor (or mandated labor benefits) makes employment more expensive.  It encourages employers to hire fewer workers, adopt labor-saving technology, employ part-time workers, and outsource labor.

There are many unknowns in how this plan for health care reform would actually play out,  but many experts and think tanks, such as NCPA, believe that the costs will be much higher than Sen. Obama’s advisers predict, and achieving universal health care will be more difficult to achieve.

To read a more comprehensive and nonpartisan break-down of the Obama health plan, visit http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba628/.

The above commentary is the opinion of the NCPA, there are likely many other think tanks that are firm suppporters of Obama’s plan.  In the coming weeks, we will summarize and present the opinion of other organizations that have contrary views.

At the Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama pledged to fight for Universal health care if elected, and vowed to finally keep the promise of affordable health insurance and accessible health insurance for all Americans.

Although specific plans about how his health care plan would work, the Democrats stand behind a platform of Universal health care and believe it to be a shared responsibility between all constituents including employers, employees, health insurance companies, providers, and of course the Government.

Fifteen years ago, President Clinton had a plan for sweeping health care reform that failed miserably partly as a result of alienating both legislators and insurers.   Obama will likely learn from the mistakes made in the past and move gradually towards the end goal of universal health care, while keeping key constituents involved in the process.

Possible first steps for Obama health care reform could include expansion of existing programs such as Childrens health insurance programs at state level, as well as making Medicare available to early retires, who currently pay large monthly premiums for individual health insurance.