Keeping Grandfathered Health Plans?
The Grandfathered clause of the new health care reform gave individuals and group plans the right to keep their current plans. To keep that grandfathered status you can not make any changes to the plan. So that means you can not raise the deductible or coinsurance to lower the premium. From a employer standpoint the […]
The Repeal Of The McCarran-Ferguson Act
The McCarran-Ferguson Act that created that antitrust exemption for the health insurance industry has been repealed through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). This will prevent the health and medical malpractice insurers from being exempt from antitrust regulation. An example of how the health industry has had problem is in a case in […]
Half Of Employer Health Care Plans May Lose Their Grandfathered Status
The White House on Monday will issue new rules that strongly discourage employers from cutting health insurance benefits or increasing the costs of coverage to employees. The administration said this was just one goal of the legislation, allowing people to “keep their current coverage if they like it.” It acknowledged that some people, especially those […]
Enrollment Declines With Top Health Plans in 2009
Mark Farrah Associates (MFA), a leading provider of market data and intelligence solutions to the health care industry reported a huge decline in member ship among eight top health insurers: Aetna, CIGNA, Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), Health Net, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, UnitedHealth Group and WellPoint. Enrollment declines continued for most of the nation’s leading health […]
Group Health Insurance Tax Credit in Indiana
The Internal Revenue Service has released a new summary of tax credits created by recent legislation that impact small businesses, including the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) small business health insurance premium tax credit and the federal COBRA subsidies. The new summary Web page consolidates many of the IRS’ tax credit resources […]
Indiana COBRA Subsidy Expires
As of June 1st 2010 the COBRA Subsidy has expired. The program provided individuals who involuntarily lost their employer-sponsored health insurance benefits with a 15-month 65% subsidy of their COBRA health insurance premium. Going forward all new COBRA Eligible people will have to pay the entire premium. All eligible individuals that are still in […]
Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act
Recently Wellpoint took some really bad press on the treatment of Breast Cancer. Some of that bad press was wrong. Anthem was accused of purposely rescinding policies of women diagnosed with breast cancer. This accusation was really way out of bounds. Wellpoint has paid for the treatment 10 of thousands of women who have suffered from […]
Possible Extension of COBRA Subsidy
Congress is poised yet again to consider another extension of the current May 31, 2010, eligibility deadline for the COBRA subsidy program provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Eligibility for the Federal COBRA premium subsidies would be extended through year-end and employers would have more time to fund their pension liabilities under […]
Medicare Reimbursement Reduced as of June 1st 2010
As it stands as of June 1st the Medicare Reimbursement rate for Medicare is going to be reduced 21%. This means the Doctors and Hospitals are going to be paid 21% less for treating Medicare patients. This is going to have a huge impact on physicians practices. What could happen is Doctors will not be […]
Implementation Of Healthcare Law Slowing
The House prepares for action on a physician payment fix while the administration trudges through early implementation steps for a new health coverage law.” Notably, “this week marks the two-month anniversary of its enactment on March 23.” The law’s “implementation gets slower as the wheels of regulatory agencies churn through new rule making…prior to a […]
