‘Uncategorized’ Archives
Health Insurance Exchange Granted Secrecy
A California law that created an agency to oversee national health care reforms granted it broad authority to conceal spending on the contractors that will perform most of its functions, potentially shielding the public from seeing how hundreds of millions of dollars are spent. The degree of secrecy afforded Covered California appears unique among [...]
Covered California Plan Approved by Governing Board
The board that is meant to govern California’s efforts to build its own health insurance exchange has approved the operational plans for the program. This is a major step towards the state running its own health insurance exchange program and complying with federal deadlines. The California Health Benefit Exchange board, which has changed [...]
Ralph Nader Says Patients Short-Changed by California’s MICRA Cap
Activist Ralph Nader urged Governor Jerry Brown to raise or abolish the cap on monetary damages awarded to patients in cases of medical malpractice or negligence. According to the Harvard Medical Practice Study conducted in 1984, more than 90,000 Americans perish every year due to medical negligence and many more suffer debilitating injuries. [...]
Life Company to Pay Up
Nationwide Insurance Company has agreed to pay an estimated $3 million to California beneficiaries of its life insurance policies, says state Controller John Chiang. Chiang began auditing insurance company practices in 2008, revealing an industry-wide practice of companies failing to pay death benefits to the beneficiaries of life insurance [...]
Employers Expressing Doubt in Retirement Readiness of 401(k) Plan
The Towers Watson survey of 371 U.S. employers that offer a 401(k) plan as their primary DC retirement plan found that more than half of respondents (56%) reported employee participation levels at or above 80% this year, compared to 50% two years ago. The higher participation rates are primarily the result of employers using automatic enrollment, [...]
Why Advisers Should Root for Small Biz 401(k) Reforms
There's a lot of talk in Washington these days about the deficiencies of the 401(k) system. There is already sufficient agreement on Capitol Hill—regardless of who wins the White House or who controls the House and Senate—to approve legislation that would allow small businesses to join newly created multi-employer retirement plans. So far, [...]
Repealing Health Reform Law Would Leave 72M Uninsured, Report Finds
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act would result in about 72 million U.S. residents being uninsured in 2022, compared with about 27 million uninsured individuals under the Affordable Care Act, according to a report. The report estimated that the ACA will reduce the uninsured rate from 15% to 10% [...]
A Top Official Looks at Health Care in California
One of the big challenges of the Health Benefit Exchange’s work is creating a marketplace that clearly and transparently explains what the costs are, what it is you’re buying and what are you going to get for that. At the epicenter of the health-care discussion in California is Diana Dooley, Gov. Brown’s Secretary for Health and Human [...]
Bowing to Investor Pressure, WellPoint CEO Quits
Wellpoint announced that Angela Braly, 51, had stepped down effective immediately. Braly had been dogged by criticism over WellPoint's slumping stock, managerial blunders and disappointing earnings. She also caught the ire of consumers and even President Obama in 2010 for trying to raise rates by up to 39% in California. The Indianapolis company [...]
CA Legislative Bill Would Lower Chemo Costs
The CA state Assembly passed AB 1000 on a 51-12 vote. The bill prohibits health plans and insurance policies from charging more for covering oral chemotherapy than for the intravenous treatment. It also has a provision to prevent insurers from hiking the costs of intravenous chemotherapy rather than reducing the cost of the pill alternative as [...]
