Ever since Texas passed HB2 in 2013, the omnibus abortion law at the heart of a pivotal case the Supreme Court will review early next year, more than half of the state's 41 abortion clinics have been forced to close. As these closures have mounted, advocates in the state have worried that the decline in abortion access could lead to a rise in the number of women trying to terminate pregnancies by themselves.
But for many consumers, the sticker shock is coming not on the front end, when they purchase the plans, but on the back end when they get sick: sky-high deductibles that are leaving some newly insured feeling nearly as vulnerable as they were before they had coverage.
“The deductible, $3,000 a year, makes it impossible to actually go to the doctor,” said David R. Reines, 60, of Jefferson Township, N.J., a former hardware salesman with chronic knee pain. “We have insurance, but can’t afford to use it.”
DENVER — Between Nov.1 and Nov. 15, more than 21,000 Coloradans enrolled in health coverage for 2016, either in private health insurance purchased through the state health insurance Marketplace or in Medicaid, or Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+), according to new data released today by Connect for Health Colorado® and the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.
“We are very pleased with the number of initial sign-ups during the first two weeks of Open Enrollment,” said Connect for Health Colorado® CEO Kevin Patterson. “But I want to urge everyone to not put off their 2016 health insurance coverage. New customers and renewing customers have a number of choices to consider. I encourage all of our customers to review their options and complete their enrollment before the last-minute rush.”
I know nothing about the military, but I'll say this: For all the screaming and hollering by the Republican presidential candidates over everything that President Obama is supposedly doing wrong when it comes to battling ISIS (or ISIL, or Daesh, or whatever the hell their name is this week), according to this story out of the L.A. Times, it sounds an awful lot like every one of their plans pretty much consist of slight modifications to what the Obama administration is already doing:
From the intensity of their rhetoric, the candidates seeking to replace President Obama might sound like they have policies for combating the Islamic State militants that are dramatically different from his. So far, they don't.
At a news conference Monday, Obama made clear that in the aftermath of the Paris attacks that Islamic State claimed to mastermind, he intends to stick with his plans.
Nov. 15--As a licensed health insurance agent, Sam Ross was used to seeing changes slipped into customers' plans during open enrollment season.
But he was surprised this month when he opened a letter from Highmark. The 60-year-old Southmont man discovered that his current plan, the Highmark Shared Cost Blue PPO 1000, which was eligible for premium tax credits on the Health Insurance Marketplace, was being discontinued -- and that he automatically would be enrolled in another plan not on the marketplace if he didn't take action before Dec. 15.
A Highmark representative said the company mailed letters to some customers -- though he wouldn't say how many or provide a list of plans being discontinued.
The company is "mapping" some customers on plans that are being discontinued into new plans, he said.
Factoring in the tax credit, the new plan would have cost Ross $481.02 more a month. It didn't come close to offering similar coverage, Ross said.
Before the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies could use medical underwriting, along with the threat of rescission, to tell whether a new policy applicant was being truthful or not about their smoking status. Under the ACA, of course, it's illegal for insurance companies to ask any questions about your medical history or pre-existing conditions which you might have...with a few exceptions, the main ones being a) whether anyone on the policy is pregnant and b) whether anyone on the policy is a smoker (hopefully not the same people!).
I'm not sure how this press release slipped by me (it was posted quietly on Nov. 11th), but my eyebrows immediately shot up when I read the first bullet point...only to turn into eyerolls when I read the second one:
PROVIDENCE – HealthSource RI (HSRI) has released certain enrollment, demographic and volume data through Saturday, November 7, 2015, for Open Enrollment.
INDIVIDUAL/FAMILY ENROLLMENT As of November 7, 2015:
30,680 individuals are enrolled in 2016 coverage through HSRI, paid and unpaid.
Nearly all of these individuals are current HSRI enrollees that have been auto-renewed into a 2016 plan.
306 individuals have selected a plan for 2016 coverage and are new to HSRI this year or returning after being enrolled with HSRI at some point during a prior year.
I was out of town over the weekend, visiting Alabama for my niece's Bat Mitzvah; then, when we got back it turned out our broadband connection had gone out (I'm currently at the library while waiting for the AT&T guy to show up).
In any event, a lot of big news happened over the past few days. The biggest non-healthcare-related stories, of course, were the horrific ISIS attacks in both Beirut (over 40 killed, over 200 wounded) and Paris (over 120 killed, over 300 wounded). My deepest sympathies to the people of Lebanon and France.
Alabama's Republican governor says he is considering expanding Medicaid under ObamaCare in his state.
"We are looking at that,” Gov. Robert Bentley said Thursday, according to The Associated Press. “We have not made a final decision on that yet, exactly how that would work.”
Bentley indicated that expanding Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, could help get more doctors into rural parts of the state.
"I am concerned about the plight of the working poor,” he said. “If doctors are not paid for seeing those patients, doctors will not go to rural Alabama, because you can't expect a doctor to go to rural Alabama and lose money.”
