Health Insurance

Nearly 5 Million Lost Health Coverage In The Past Three Weeks

April 10, 2020 Physicians for a National Health Program. Educate! COVID-19, Employment, Health Insurance, Medicare for all

4,805,894 American workers and their dependents have lost health insurance coverage in the past three weeks, according to a new estimate by researchers at The City of New York’s Hunter College and Harvard Medical School. The researchers also estimate that a total of 13.475 million will join the ranks of the uninsured by June 30, raising the number of uninsured Americans to about 43 million. The new figures include coverage losses among newly-unemployed workers as well as their dependents covered under job-based family policies. The figures update previous estimates that the same researchers published online in the Annals of Internal Medicine on April 7, 2020. Those previous estimates only included workers themselves who were laid off during the last two weeks of March, and did not include dependents losing family coverage because of layoffs, or the most recent week of data.

‘All I Want For Christmas Is A Chance To Live’

December 24, 2019 The Backbone Campaign, Popular Resistance. Create! Corporatism, Health Insurance, Healthcare, Medicare for all

CareFirst has denied cancer patient and Annapolis resident Phil Ateto access to life saving drugs. The Chicago-based medical insurance company is superseding the wishes of Phil’s oncology team. To expose that CareFirst’s choice to put profits first is condemning him to die. On Monday night December 23rd, Phil Ateto went to their Baltimore office to shine a spotlight on their greed and urge them to reverse their “death panel” decision. Phil is a renown artful activist with a group called Backbone Campaign that uses creative means such as light projection to support progressive causes around the country. Phil has tirelessly fought for economic and environmental justice, opposed racism and endless wars that squander lives and resources, and he’s long advocated for universal human rights.

New Poll Finds Voters Strongly Oppose Employer Insurance

October 27, 2019 Matt Bruenig, Peoples Policy Project. Educate! Health Care, Health Insurance, Medicare for all

Many centrist pundits have convinced themselves that Medicare for All (M4A) is unpopular because, when you include certain details about M4A in polling questions, support levels drop significantly. But in convincing themselves of this, centrist pundits seem remarkably incurious about whether this same thing occurs for employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) when you include certain details about it in polling questions. Earlier this week, Emerson Polling helped answer this question when it asked voters whether they support employers being allowed to change or eliminate an employee’s health insurance against the employee’s wishes. Only 11 percent of voters said they supported this while 70 percent opposed it.

How Employees And Employers Get Bled By Health Insurance

September 30, 2019 Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism. Educate! Health Insurance, Healthcare costs, Workers

“The single biggest issue in health care for most Americans is that their health costs are growing much faster than their wages are,” KFF CEO Drew Altman said. “Costs are prohibitive when workers making $25,000 a year have to shell out $7,000 a year just for their share of family premiums.” Many lower-wage workers cannot afford the contributions and forego the health insurance even if their companies offer it. As a result, at companies with many lower-wage workers, only 33% of the workers are covered by the employer’s health insurance, compared to 63% at the other companies. For single coverage of the employee only, the annual cost of the average health insurance premium — employer and employee contributions combined — rose 4.2% in 2019, to $7,188, with the employee paying 17% or $1,242 (up from 14% in 1999) and the employer paying 83% or $5,946 (down from 86% in 1999).

Wolf Richter: How Employees & Employers Get Bled By Health Insurance

September 27, 2019 By Yves Smith, Nakedcapitalism.com Educate! Health Care, Health Insurance

Yves here. We’re heavy on health matters tonight because the Trump/Ukraine scandal is eating the news. These stats on health insurance costs are damning. And remember these are averages, so think of what it’s like for those who pay even more than the nosebleed levels shown. Our earlier story tonight, on private equity, describes one of the big hidden forces behind the relentless cost rise. And it’s not just physicians’ practices. Private equity has been consolidating hospitals (with less economic success than they had hoped due to state regulation), dialysis centers, rehab centers...

Medicare For All Means Real Choice

July 7, 2019 Bonnie Castillo, Commondreams. Create! Health Care, Health Insurance, Medicare for all, Single payer health care

A new survey out this week is an important step forward to demolishing one of the principle talking points against Medicare for All. No doubt, you've heard this one: "People love their insurance! Under Medicare for All, you'll lose your private insurance and your doctor." Uh, no. A Morning Consult/Politico survey conducted after the first Democratic presidential primary debates found that when people hear the real story—that under Medicare for All you can keep your preferred doctors and hospitals, support climbs to a clear majority of 55 percent. Support among Democrats gets to 78 percent. For independents it's a big leap of 14 points, up to 56 percent support.

Are You Sure You Actually ‘Like’ Your Private Health Insurance?

June 21, 2019 Dr. Sanjeev K. Sriram, Independent Media Institute Create! Health Care, Health Insurance, Privatization

In 2018, as millions of Americans borrowed $88 billion to pay for health care, 62 CEOs of health care companies made a combined total of $1.1 billion in compensation. When I talk to friends, family, and colleagues about Medicare for All, sometimes someone asks, “but don’t people like their insurance?” It’s not hard to see where they got that idea. America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the leading lobbyist for the for-profit insurance industry, says 71 percent of Americans “like” their private health insurance.

Former Aetna Medical Director Admits To Never Reviewing Medical Records Before Denying Care

February 28, 2019 Robert Glatter, Forbes.com Educate! Health Care, Health Insurance

In an eye-opening exclusive reported by CNN, it was revealed that former Aetna Medical Director, Dr. Jay Ken Iinuma, admitted under oath that “he never looked at patients’ records when deciding whether to approve or deny care.” This admission was made during a deposition in a lawsuit brought against Aetna by Gillen Washington, a 23 year old with common variable immune deficiency (CVID) who was denied coverage for an infusion of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) four years ago.

Two-Thirds Of Bankruptcy Still Caused By Medical Illness And Medical Bills

February 8, 2019 Staff, Pnhp.org Educate! Bankruptcy, Debt, Health Care, Health Insurance

Medical problems contributed to 66.5% of all bankruptcies, a figure that is virtually unchanged since before the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), according to a study published yesterday as an editorial in the American Journal of Public Health. The findings indicate that 530,000 families suffer bankruptcies each year that are linked to illness or medical bills. The study, carried out by a team of two doctors, two lawyers, and a sociologist from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project (CBP), surveyed a random sample of 910 Americans who filed for personal bankruptcy between 2013 and 2016, and abstracted the court records of their bankruptcy filings.

Nancy Pelosi Tells Health Insurance Executives Not To Worry About Medicare For All

February 6, 2019 Ryan Grim, Theintercept.com Educate! Health Care, Health Insurance, Medicare

LESS THAN A month after Democrats — many of them running on “Medicare for All” — won back control of the House of Representatives in November, the top health policy aide to then-prospective House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Blue Cross Blue Shield executives and assured them that party leadership had strong reservations about single-payer health care and was more focused on lowering drug prices, according to sources familiar with the meeting. Pelosi adviser Wendell Primus detailed five objections to Medicare for All and said that Democrats would be allies to the insurance industry in the fight against single-payer health care.

Health Insurers Are Vacuuming Up Details About You — And It Could Raise Your Rates

July 18, 2018 Marshall Allen, Propublica.org Educate! Data, Health Insurance

To an outsider, the fancy booths at last month’s health insurance industry gathering in San Diego aren’t very compelling. A handful of companies pitching “lifestyle” data and salespeople touting jargony phrases like “social determinants of health.” But dig deeper and the implications of what they’re selling might give many patients pause: A future in which everything you do — the things you buy, the food you eat, the time you spend watching TV — may help determine how much you pay for health insurance. With little public scrutiny, the health insurance industry has joined forces with data brokers to vacuum up personal details about hundreds of millions of Americans, including, odds are, many readers of this story. The companies are tracking your race, education level, TV habits, marital status, net worth.

Whistleblowers Sue City’s Top Health Insurance Providers

March 20, 2018 By Brigid Bergin, Wnyc.org Educate! Health Insurance, Lawsuit, Whistleblowers

Three whistleblowers representing New York City employees and retirees are suing the city’s top health insurance providers for defrauding taxpayers of more than a billion dollars. The lawsuit unsealed in New York Supreme Court last month alleges that GHI, along with parent company EmblemHealth and their partner, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, engaged in a long-running scheme that provided inadequate healthcare to city employees and retirees — while collecting $3 billion in premiums from the city each year. The GHI-Empire plan covers 600,000 people — about 75 percent of city workers, retirees and families. In a 63-page complaint, the plaintiffs say the companies filed false claims to overstate their expenses by an average of $55 million dollars a year between 2008 and 2014.

Health Insurance And Pharma Block Hopes For Single-Payer Health Care

February 1, 2018 By Josh Finkelstein, Opensecrets.org Educate! Big Pharma, Health Care, Health Insurance, Single payer health care

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont hosted a town hall recently to discuss the Medicare for All Act, during which he emphasized a conflict of interest around involving the private sector in healthcare. “Right now, we have a healthcare system that is not designed to provide quality care to all people in a cost effective way,” Sanders said at the town hall. “Let us be frank, we have a healthcare system designed to make enormous profits for insurance companies and drug companies. And disease prevention is not very high on their lists.” Sanders isn’t alone in his sentiment. A number of polls last year (see here, here, and here) indicate that a growing plurality of Americans support switching to a single-payer healthcare system, including a substantial majority of Democrats.

Fragmented Health System Paves Way For CVS-Aetna Merger

November 11, 2017 Aaron Mate, www.therealnews.com Educate! Health Care, Health Insurance, Merger, Monopoly

By Aaron Mate for The Real News. It's The Real News. I'm Aaron Maté. In what is being called the biggest merger in the history of the health insurance industry, CVS is reportedly making a $66 billion bid to buy Aetna. CVS operates pharmacies all over the country, while Aetna sells health insurance policies. Now, the cost of both pharmaceutical drugs and health insurance plans are already sky high, so could a merger of these two giants make those prices even higher? Joining me is Bill Black, associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Welcome, Bill. So, your thoughts on this potential merger.

Republicans Protect Insurance Industry, Call It ‘Stablizing Obamacare’

February 17, 2017 Peter Sullivan, www.thehill.com Educate! Congress, Health Insurance, Obamacare, Republican Party

By Peter Sullivan for The Hill - The Trump administration on Wednesday proposed a regulation aimed at “stabilizing” the ObamaCare marketplace by making changes favorable to insurers to help prevent them from bailing out or hiking premiums. The move is surprising, given that President Trump has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But his administration is now in the position of trying to shore up the law’s marketplaces, at least temporarily, while Congress debates replacement plans and timing options. Now that he’s president, Trump faces the possibility of being blamed for premium hikes or insurers dropping out if the market deteriorates. Trump has also taken steps to chip away at ObamaCare. Most prominently, he signed an executive order that, while not specific, called on agencies to loosen ObamaCare requirements.

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