October 1st, 2011 by PreparedPatient in News, Opinion
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Cigna launched a $25 million “GO YOU” national branding campaign last week signaling that they are gearing up for tons of new customers as health reform rolls towards 2014. That new business will come from the millions of Americans now uninsured who will start getting government subsidies as an encouragement to buy health insurance coverage. If those uninsured folks don’t get coverage, they will have tax penalties to pay.
No insurer wants to be left behind in this expanding marketplace, so Cigna, by being first out of the gate, hopes to build brand awareness that will ring bells in 2014 when consumers must buy insurance. It’s a smart strategy. One industry consultant says “most insurers have not built enough brand equity with consumers.”
Cigna’s ad campaign positions health insurance as Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
September 6th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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I have described how the healthcare insurance industry loads its expenses into direct patient care expenses to increase their profits.
The Medical-Loss Ratio calculation is not reported by the traditional media. The healthcare insurance industry spends less healthcare dollars on direct patient care after it is permitted by federal and local agencies to load its expenses into the direct patient care column.
Simply put, the healthcare insurance industry cooks the books to increase its net profit.
Another way to increase profits is to shortchange physicians on medical claims. In fact, 20% of medical claims payments are inaccurate according to the American Medical Association’s (AMA) fourth annual National Health Insurer Report Card. Claims-processing errors by health insurance companies waste billions of dollars and frustrate patients and physicians.
This is one of the reasons the RAND report about physicians controlling waste is so absurd to me. The healthcare insurance industry creates waste in order to increase net profit. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
June 30th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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The use of economic incentives to motivate behavior is neither a Democratic or Republican idea. It is human nature to be motivated by economic incentives. The concept of individual responsibility is an American idea. It has been tarnished in recent years.
There is no question in my mind that government has the responsibility to be compassionate and help the needy. It is my view that government should help individuals help themselves.
The costs associated with Medicare and traditional healthcare insurance are rising. Every stakeholder points a finger at the other stakeholders as the cause.
President Obama’s Healthcare Reform Act is raising costs higher in anticipation of cuts in the future. He is in the process of forcing individuals to be more dependent on the government rather than promoting individual responsibility.
Obamacare will fail to control costs.
All anyone has to do is look at a Rand Corp. study of 29 years ago to see what works and what doesn’t work. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
October 15th, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
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Who doesn’t need insurance reform? Why, the insurers like Aetna, Cigna, and BCS Insurance, that’s who! From Emergency Physicians Monthly:
By threatening to raise health care premiums by 200 percent or threatening to drop coverage altogether, the companies got the Department of Health and Human Services to cave. Now the companies have our government’s blessing to continue offering “insurance” to their employees that is capped at a few thousand dollars per year instead of the $750,000 required in the health care law.
Perhaps GruntDoc said it best:
“I am not an Obamacare fan, and would like it repealed, with smaller, more focused Bipartisan fixes, but if the government is going to pass something then roll over this easily to special interests… it’s already worse than useless.”
-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
