Insurance

UnitedHealth’s Playbook For Limiting Coverage Puts Countless People At Risk

November 20, 2024 Annie Waldman, ProPublica. Educate! Denials, health, Health Insurance, Insurance, mental health, UnitedHealthcare

For years, it was a mystery: Seemingly out of the blue, therapists would feel like they’d tripped some invisible wire and become a target of UnitedHealth Group. A company representative with the Orwellian title “care advocate” would call and grill them about why they’d seen a patient twice a week or weekly for six months. In case after case, United would refuse to cover care, leaving patients to pay out-of-pocket or go without it. The severity of their issues seemed not to matter. Around 2016, government officials began to pry open United’s black box.

New Report: Insurers Are Gaming Medicare To The Tune Of $140 Billion

October 15, 2023 Matthew Cunningham-Cook and Lucy Dean Stockton, The Lever. Educate! Health Care, Insurance, Medicare, Medicare Advantage

The federal government is losing as much as $140 billion per year by subsidizing private Medicare Advantage plans, according to a bombshell new report. In the groundbreaking investigation, health care researchers identified the four major ways that private insurers systematically exploit the taxpayer-funded national health insurance program while denying care to the nation’s most vulnerable patients. The researchers additionally found that seniors could save over $1,800 in annual fees taken from their Social Security checks if the government redirected what it spends subsidizing Medicare Advantage plans to instead reduce premium costs. Under the current arrangement, “traditional” Medicare pays about $12,000 a year to private Medicare Advantage insurers for every patient whose care they “manage.”

The National Flood Insurance Program Is Broken

September 17, 2023 Krista Egger, Next City. Create! climate crisis, Extreme weather, Floods, Insurance

The most expensive type of disaster in the United States is flooding. Hurricanes, a major source of flooding, make up seven of the 10 costliest disasters in United States history, from Katrina in 2005 to Ian in 2022. Together, these storms alone have cost $800 billion, adjusted for inflation. Half a century ago—before any of these storms occurred—the federal government created the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), a public sector alternative to fill in the gaps in higher-risk areas where commercial insurance is unavailable. But as the frequency and severity of flooding events have increased—and as insurers continue to add to the list of states they refuse to insure—the NFIP has become massively oversubscribed, amassing more than $20 billion in debt on behalf of its five million policyholders.

US Facing Up To $2 Trillion Bill Each Year From Climate Crisis By 2100

April 8, 2022 Louise Boyle, The Independent. Educate! Biden administration, climate crisis, Finance and the Economy, Insurance

Failing to take action on the climate crisis and surrendering to a worsening spiral of wildfires, heatwaves, flooding, and extreme storms, could leave the federal government with an annual bill of $2 trillion by the end of the century, according to new federal analysis. President Joe Biden released his federal budget for fiscal year 2023 last week which included $44.9bn to tackle the climate crisis, close to a 60 per cent increase from 2021. The budget also included a formal accounting on the financial risks of climate change to the US government for the first time. The analysis, conducted by the chief economist in the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the associate director for climate, energy, environment, and science, found that US gross domestic product (GDP) could be slashed 3 to 10 per cent by the end of this century.

AIG To Stop Insuring Coal, Tar Sands, And Arctic Drilling

March 2, 2022 Kenny Stancil, Commondreams. Resist! AIG, Divestment, Fossil Fuels, Insurance

Climate justice advocates celebrated Tuesday in response to insurance giant AIG's announcement that it will no longer invest in or provide insurance coverage for any new Arctic drilling activities nor will it finance or underwrite the construction of any new coal-fired power plants, thermal coal mines, or tar sands projects, effective immediately. AIG also said that it will immediately stop investing in or underwriting "new operation insurance risks" of coal-fired power plants, thermal coal mines, or tar sands projects owned by corporations that derive 30% or more of their revenue from those industries or generate over 30% of their energy production from coal.

Directors Of World’s Top Insurance Companies Tied To Pollution

October 8, 2021 Rachel Sherrington, DeSmog Blog. Educate! Corporatism, Fossil Fuel, Insurance

Just over half of all directors at 30 of the world’s largest insurance companies have affiliations to polluting companies and organisations, reveals an investigation by DeSmog, including several individuals holding senior roles at some of the world’s largest energy companies. The findings raise concerns over a potential pervasive conflict of interest on the boards at a time when the international insurance sector is under pressure to halt its support for the fossil fuel industry. Positions held by the insurance directors analysed ranged from director and advisory roles, including current roles at ExxonMobil, Total, and RWE, along with current and former memberships to industry trade association and think tanks, such as the US Chamber of Commerce. DeSmog analysed director CVs on company profiles, LinkedIn pages, official filings, and news clippings from July 2021, logging the past and present work experience of 371 insurance directors who currently sit on the boards of 30 of the world’s largest property and casualty insurers.

Indigenous Youth Demand End To Trans Mountain Insurance

February 21, 2021 Katie Hyslop, The Tyee. Resist! Canada, Divestment, Insurance, Trans Mountain Pipeline

A group of Indigenous youth took their fight against the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project to the Vancouver offices of insurance companies backing the controversial venture earlier this week. On Thursday, approximately 20 youth from the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh) and other First Nations occupied the lobby — as well as south and west entrances — of 250 Howe St., a high-rise building housing Chubb Insurance Co. of Canada, one of 11 insurers backing the pipeline project. “We are demanding that they stop insuring the pipeline,” said a protest spokesperson who declined to give their name. “We’re going to be here all day, we’re going to make sure that they hear us, that they know that we’re here, that we know that we are trying to pressure them to stop insuring this pipeline.”

Economic Impacts Of Civil Unrest

August 11, 2020 Jim Sams, Claims Journal. Educate! Business, Civil unrest, Insurance, Property damage

The civil disturbance that started in Minneapolis after the killing by police of George Floyd spread to 20 other states — an unprecedented property insurance catastrophe that will likely impact policy renewals and could even persuade some insurers to exclude coverage for damage caused by riots, executives for Verisk’s Property Claim Services said. “In the U.S., there has been no precedent for a riot catastrophe like this,” Tom Johansmeyer, head of PCS, said during a telephone interview with the Claims Journal on Thursday.

Insurance Companies Are Spending Millions On Attack Ads Against Medicare For All

December 7, 2019 By Alan Macleod, Mintpressnews.com Educate! Health Care, Insurance, Medicare for all, Reform

The privatized, for-profit healthcare industry is close to panicking over the prospect of a nationalized system along the lines of other advanced countries. Healthcare corporations are spending millions of dollars on astroturfed attack ads against Medicare for All. The Partnership for America’s Healthcare Future, for example, a coalition of hospitals and insurance companies, has spent $1 million on a television campaign against changes to the current healthcare system they profit from.

Union Opponents Of Medicare For All Don’t Speak For Labor’s Most Vulnerable Members

November 15, 2019 Alexandra Early, Beyondchron.org Create! Health Care, Insurance, Medicare, Reform

As popular support grows for replacing private insurance plans with Medicare for All, critics of the single-payer approach have been playing up the fact that some top union officials, and their political allies, don’t want to do away with job-based medical coverage. “There’s no question that ultimately we need to establish a single payer system,” says national AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “But there has to be a role for those hard-fought-for, high-quality plans that we’ve negotiated.”

Why Thousands Are Getting Hit With Unexpected Medical Bills

June 1, 2019 Simon F. Haeder, Theconversation.com Educate! Debt, Health Care, Insurance

Hardly a week goes by without another story in the media covering a family somewhere in America dealing with an outrageous medical bill. Yet, in more and more cases, these families don’t have junk insurance, or lack coverage altogether. Indeed, they have what Americans would consider decent coverage, either through their employer or an Affordable Care Act marketplace. They also followed, or so they thought, the rules of their insurance policy requiring them to seek care inside their provider network. Yet, they are slapped with surprise bills, and often threatened by bankruptcy.

“Affordable” Health Insurance Vs Health Care

January 30, 2019 Tom Crofton, Counterpunch.org Strategize! Health Care, Insurance

There is no such thing as affordable health insurance, because on a purely moral basis, no one should have to pay for administration costs to deny coverage, and to generate a profit for such a universal basic human need. Insurance 101 teaches us that making small regular payments to build up a buffer for a large emergency expense is a good and prudent idea, even if that large expense never materializes. On a personal level this is called self-insurance. So why don’t we all just insure ourselves? Clearly, the wages most people make, and the costs of modern health care, do not balance out.

The Cost of Employer Insurance Is A Growing Burden For Middle-Income Families

December 8, 2018 Sara R. Collins and David C. Radley, Commonwealthfund.org Educate! Insurance, Working Class

Recent national surveys show health care costs are a top concern in U.S. households.1 While the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces receive a lot of media and political attention, the truth is that far more Americans get their coverage through employers. In 2017, more than half (56%) of people under age 65 — about 152 million people — had insurance through an employer, either their own or a family member’s.2 In contrast, only 9 percent had a plan purchased on the individual market, including the marketplaces.

Minority Neighborhoods Pay Higher Car Insurance Premiums Than White Areas With Same Risk

September 25, 2017 Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Lauren Kirchner and Surya Mattu, www.propublica.org Educate! Economic inequality, Insurance, Racism

By Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Lauren Kirchner and Surya Mattu for ProPublica - For decades, auto insurers have been observed to charge higher average premiums to drivers living in predominantly minority urban neighborhoods than to drivers with similar safety records living in majority white neighborhoods. Insurers have long defended their pricing by saying that the risk of accidents is greater in those neighborhoods, even for motorists who have never had one. But a first-of-its-kind analysis by ProPublica and Consumer Reports, which examined auto insurance premiums and payouts in California, Illinois, Texas and Missouri, has found that many of the disparities in auto insurance prices between minority and white neighborhoods are wider than differences in risk can explain. In some cases, insurers such as Allstate, Geico and Liberty Mutual were charging premiums that were on average 30 percent higher in zip codes where most residents are minorities than in whiter neighborhoods with similar accident costs. Our findings document what consumer advocates have long suspected: Despite laws in almost every state banning discriminatory rate-setting, some minority neighborhoods pay higher auto insurance premiums than do white areas with similar payouts on claims. This disparity may amount to a subtler form of redlining, a term that traditionally refers to denial of services or products to minority areas.

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