Showing posts with label
Health Insurance Cancellation Letters.
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Showing posts with label
Health Insurance Cancellation Letters.
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"There’s been a lot of discussion about whether the risk adjustment tools embedded in ObamaCare amount to a bailout for the insurance companies, or are a reasonable feature of the law. There’s been far less information about how much money the insurers stand to gain from these measures, to offset their expected losses.
Now we have some hard numbers. Humana announced that it expects to tap the three risk adjustment mechanisms in ObamaCare for between $250 and $450 million in 2014. This amounts to about 25 percent of the insurer’s expected exchange revenue. This money is needed to offset losses that the insurer will take as a result of slower enrollment in its ObamaCare plans, and a skewed risk pool that weighs more heavily toward older and less healthy members than it originally budgeted.
More than half of the money will come from the $25 billion reinsurance pool that ObamaCare provides (collected through a tax on employer-sponsored health plans). The other half will come mostly from the risk corridors. Humana is expected to book the money as revenue to offset shortfalls between what it collects in exchange premiums and pays out in medical claims.
The company blamed the Obama Administration’s decision late last year to extend grandfathering of individual market plans for the overall deterioration in the risk pool. That means that Humana (like other insurers) was counting on people from the individual market being forced to transition into ObamaCare plans. It’s widely perceived that the Obama Administration counted on that migration as well. But Humana’s statement was a very clear expression of this expectation." - Obamacare 'Bailout' For One Insurer Will Cost Up To $450 Million In 2014, forbes.com, 02/06/2014
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottgottlieb/2014/02/06/obamacare-bailout-for-one-insurer-450-million-in-2014/
Consider for a moment the following mantra regarding pre-existing conditions:
(1) Obamacare/ACA proponents put forth that their scheme is grand and great as it takes all comers as it includes/accepts even those with pre-existing conditions,
(2) that somehow and in some way people where cancelled by insurers, in the past, due to pre-existing conditions which becomes the vilification of insurers for such practice,
(3) hence you can then acquire health insurance and never be cancelled due to pre-existing conditions.
Nice and tidy argument huh? Maybe not so much.
For a moment consider the above mantra as exactly correct (which it is not and discussed below). Now consider the above mantra again with the following in mind:
(1) if one had acquired health insurance in the past and consequently a condition manifested itself which would qualify as a pre-existing condition,
(2) yet one’s policy was cancelled or will soon be cancelled because it did not/does not conform to Obamacare/ACA guidelines,
(3) then the same group of ACA proponents have advocated and initiated, through legislation, insurers cancelling policies with pre-exiting conditions.
Oops!
If you examine the ACA proponents argument regarding insurers cancelling policies due to pre-existing conditions one actually finds the facts and mantra don’t jive. How so? The mantra is based on “rescissions”. An insurer rescission of coverage, generally speaking, is when an applicant did not divulge a pre-existing condition on the initial application then seeks treatment soon after the policy went into force for the pre-existing condition. The policy is rescinded and premium is returned to the insured [rescission].
Exactly how widespread was this "rescissions" process? One hundred thousand rescissions per year? Half a million rescissions per year? Millions? If you no longer have to worry about losing your health insurance because you are sick, and this is a major talking point regarding Obamacare, then the phenomena had to be affecting a major portion of the population. Right?
Wrong. Sorry, it’s yet another Obamacare riddle.
"According to a congressional report, there were actually fewer than 5,000 rescissions per year, and at least some of those were actual cases of fraud...." (1) (2)
Coming full circle, considering fewer than 5,000 rescissions per year supporting the mantra regarding pre-existing conditions and further considering the approximately 135,000 signing up for Obamacare directed risk pools: Is the total number of rescissions and risk pool applicants smaller than or greater than the 4.2 million policies cancelled by ACA advocates considering the subsection of the 4.2 million policies (so far) which indeed have acquired pre-existing conditions? (3) (4)
Who cancelled who?
Notes:
(1) Bad Medicine, Cato Institute, M.D. Tanner, page 7
(2) http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090616/rescission_supplemental.pdf
(3) Funds run low for health insurance in state ‘high-risk pools’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/2013/02/15/cb9d56ac-779c-11e2-8f84-3e4b513b1a13_story.html?hpid=z1
(4) New Numbers: 4.2M Americans Dropped From Health Plans, foxnewsinsider.com
http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/11/07/how-many-americans-have-lost-their-health-insurance-under-obamacare
‘At the height of controversy surrounding President Obama’s promises on the federal health care overhaul, U.S. Senator Mark Udall’s office worked assiduously to revise press accounts that 249,000 Coloradans received health care cancellation notices. Because the 249,000 figure was produced inside the Colorado Division of Insurance, Udall’s office lobbied that agency to revise the figure, or revise their definition of what qualified as a cancellation.’
‘Worth noting is the fact the original media reports of 249,000 cancellations in the state happened on or about November 6. The dispute between Udall’s office and the Department of Insurance didn’t happen more than a week later on November 14. Specifically, the issue didn’t appear to rise to importance for the Udall office until President Obama decreed citizens could keep cancelled plans.
At the time of President Obama’s decree on November 13, Senator Udall was proposing legislation that would have created a legal framework whereby citizens with cancelled plans could keep said plans for an additional two years.
In yet another email, Udall staffer Joe Britton gives away the extent to which Udall’s office was seeking complicit messaging from the Division of Insurance. ”We need to move on this ASAP – or we’ll be forced to challenge the 249K number ourselves. It is wildly off or at least very misleading and reporters keep repeating it.” Eventually, Udall’s office did take the task upon themselves, successfully garnering a telling of their story in The Denver Post with an online publishing timestamped 4:57 PM MST, November 15. Donlin later alerted several of her colleagues in the Division of Insurance about the online story, saying, “Here’s a link to [Denver Post reporter] Mike Booth’s latest article quoting ‘Sen. Udall staff.’ The online comments are very interesting.”’ - Udall’s office pushed back hard on number of health care cancellations, completecolorado.com, 01/09/2014
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://completecolorado.com/pagetwo/2014/01/09/udalls-office-pushed-back-hard-on-number-of-health-care-cancellations/
'Many in New York’s professional and cultural elite have long supported President Obama’s health care plan. But now, to their surprise, thousands of writers, opera singers, music teachers, photographers, doctors, lawyers and others are learning that their health insurance plans are being canceled and they may have to pay more to get comparable coverage, if they can find it.
They are part of an unusual, informal health insurance system that has developed in New York, in which independent practitioners were able to get lower insurance rates through group plans, typically set up by their professional associations or chambers of commerce. That allowed them to avoid the sky-high rates in New York’s individual insurance market, historically among the most expensive in the country.
But under the Affordable Care Act, they will be treated as individuals, responsible for their own insurance policies. For many of them, that is likely to mean they will no longer have access to a wide network of doctors and a range of plans tailored to their needs. And many of them are finding that if they want to keep their premiums from rising, they will have to accept higher deductible and co-pay costs or inferior coverage.
“I couldn’t sleep because of it,” said Barbara Meinwald, a solo practitioner lawyer in Manhattan.
Ms. Meinwald, 61, has been paying $10,000 a year for her insurance through the New York City Bar. A broker told her that a new temporary plan with fewer doctors would cost $5,000 more, after factoring in the cost of her medications.
Ms. Meinwald also looked on the state’s health insurance exchange. But she said she found that those plans did not have a good choice of doctors, and that it was hard to even find out who the doctors were, and which hospitals were covered. “It’s like you’re blindfolded and you’re told that you have to buy something,” she said.
The people affected include not just writers, artists, doctors and the like, but also independent tradespeople, like home builders or carpenters, who work on their own.' - With Affordable Care Act, Canceled Policies for New York Professionals, NYT, 12/13/2013
Link to entire article appears below:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/nyregion/with-affordable-care-act-canceled-policies-for-new-york-professionals.html?smid=pl-share
"New Coke was introduced to the marketplace on April 23, 1985. On that same date, old Coke was removed from the marketplace. On July 10, 1985, the old Coke product was returned to the marketplace. It only took 78 days for the people at Coca Cola to recognize and admit that they had made a huge mistake. Obamacare will be 78 days old on Tuesday, December 17, 2013. There is a message here." - Obamacare and New Coke, Ken Adler, Townhall.com, 12/16/2013
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://townhall.com/columnists/hankadler/2013/12/16/obamacare-and-new-coke-n1762840
“How anxious is the Obama administration about the health care law’s effects on insurance coverage? For the last few days, speculation has increased about the possibility that the law could actually result in a net loss of coverage at the beginning of next year—with more people losing existing insurance as a result of cancellations than have signed up for new insurance plans under the law. An announcement this afternoon strongly suggests that the administration is more than a little bit concerned about this possibility as well.
The Department of Health and Human Services said this afternoon that it will extend coverage options for individuals currently enrolled in the law’s temporary high-risk pool program through the end of January, instead of allowing the program to end on December 31 as originally planned. It will also require private insurers selling policies in the law's insurance exchanges to accept payment up until December 31 of this year for coverage than begins January 1.
In addition, HHS said it would “strongly encourage” insurers to take other "transitional" steps over the next month as well—steps like accepting partial pre-payment for coverage that begins on January 1 as a “down payment” in lieu of full payment prior to the start of coverage and allowing people who sign up after the December 23 deadline to begin coverage on January 1. HHS also said it hoped insurers would accept out of network providers as in-network for “acute episodes” or in cases in which a provider was listed in an insurer’s enrollment directory but dropped out after an individual’s enrollment date.
On an afternoon conference call about the changes, the administration even suggested that insurers should consider accepting as enrolled anyone who has signed up for a plan by December 23—even if the person in question has not paid the first month’s premium at all. Payments could be made after January 1, and after coverage kicked in.” - White House In Obamacare Panic Mode? Administration Announces Steps to Maintain Insurance Coverage As Worries About Disruptions Mount, reason.com, 12/12/2013
Link to entire article appears below:
http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/12/white-house-in-obamacare-panic-mode-admi
Update: Trainwreck: White House Issues More Frantic Obamacare Deadline Extensions, townhall.com, 12/13/2013
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/12/13/industry-expert-no-healthcaregov-isnt-fixed-n1762127?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm
"A new and independent analysis of ObamaCare warns of a ticking time bomb, predicting a second wave of 50 million to 100 million insurance policy cancellations next fall -- right before the mid-term elections.
The next round of cancellations and premium hikes is expected to hit employees, particularly of small businesses. While the administration has tried to downplay the cancellation notices hitting policyholders on the individual market by noting they represent a relatively small fraction of the population, the swath of people who will be affected by the shakeup in employer-sponsored coverage will be much broader.
An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, shows the administration anticipates half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predict up to 100 million small and large business policies could be canceled next year." - Second wave of health plan cancellations looms, Foxnews.com, 11/20/2013
Link to entire article appears below:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/20/second-wave-health-plan-cancellations-looms/
“A day after he questioned President Obama’s decision to unwind a major tenet of the health-care law and said the nation’s capital might not go along, D.C. insurance commissioner William P. White was fired.
White was called into a meeting Friday afternoon with one of Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s (D) top deputies and told that the mayor “wants to go in a different direction,” White told The Washington Post on Saturday.”
“In a statement issued Thursday, White hinted strongly that he opposed the idea.
“The action today undercuts the purpose of the exchanges, including the District’s DC Health Link, by creating exceptions that make it more difficult for them to operate,” the statement said.
He also pointed to a statement issued by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners that said the Obama order “threatens to undermine the new market, and may lead to higher premiums and market disruptions in 2014 and beyond.”
“We concur with that assessment,” White said Thursday.
White’s statement was removed from the department’s Web site sometime before Friday morning. Asked about the removal Friday, spokesman Michael Flagg said the department’s statement had changed.
“Our statement now is that we’re taking a close look at the implications of the president’s announcement on the District’s exchange and we will soon recommend a course of action after taking into consideration the positions of all the stakeholders,” Flagg wrote in an e-mail.” - D.C. insurance commissioner fired a day after questioning Obamacare fix, Washington Post, 11/16/2013
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-insurance-commissioner-fired-a-day-after-questioning-obamacare-fix/2013/11/16/b88eaea0-4f17-11e3-9890-a1e0997fb0c0_story.html?tid=pm_local_pop
“Thirty-nine House Democrats on Friday broke ranks to support a Republican bill that would allow health insurers to continue selling plans canceled under Obamacare through 2014, the first test of support on Capitol Hill since the law’s disastrous rollout.
The House voted, 261-157, to pass the bill by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.). It’s a significant show of disloyalty to the White House, but House Democrats had expected the defections to be far higher before the Obama administration said Thursday that it would pursue an administrative fix to the cancellation problem.
Obama’s White House vowed to veto the bill, saying it “threatens the health security of hard working, middle class families.” The bill is headed nowhere in the Democratic-led Senate, where a number of Senate Democrats have also proposed their own changes to the health care law.” - With 39 Dems behind it, House passes Obamacare fix, politico.com, 11/15/2013
Link to the entire story appears below:
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/democrats-obamacare-vote-99915.html
WASHINGTON — Bowing to pressure, President Barack Obama on Thursday announced changes to his health care law to give insurance companies the option to keep offering consumers plans that would otherwise be canceled.
The administrative changes are good for just one year, though senior administration officials said they could be extended if problems with the law persist. Obama announced the changes at the White House.
"This fix won't solve every problem for every person, but it's going to help a lot of people," the president said.’
‘It's unclear what the impact of Thursday's changes will be for the millions of people who have already had their plans canceled. While officials said insurance companies will now be able to offer those people the option to renew their old plans, companies are not required to take that step.
Insurance companies will be required to inform consumers who want to keep canceled plans about the protections that are not included under those plans. Customers will also be notified that new options are available offering more coverage and in some cases, tax credits to cover higher premiums.
Under Obama's plan, insurance companies would not be allowed to sell coverage deemed subpar under the law to new customers, marking a difference with legislation that House Republicans intend to put to a vote on Friday.
Only last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a Senate panel she doubted that retroactively permitting insurers to sell canceled policies "can work very well since companies are now in the market with an array of new plans. Many have actually added consumer protections in the last three-and-a-half years." ‘ - Policy cancellations: Obama will allow old plans, msn.com, AP, 11/14/2013
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://news.msn.com/us/policy-cancellations-obama-will-allow-old-plans
“WASHINGTON — Anxious congressional Democrats are threatening to abandon President Obama on a central element of his signature health care law, voicing increasing support for proposals that would allow Americans who are losing their health insurance coverage because of the Affordable Care Act to retain it.
The dissent comes as the Obama administration released enrollment figures on Wednesday that fell far short of expectations, and as House Republicans continued their sharp criticism of administration officials at congressional hearings examining the performance of the health care website and possible security risks of the online insurance exchanges.
In addition, a vote is scheduled Friday in the Republican-controlled House on a bill that would allow Americans to keep their existing health coverage through 2014 without penalties. The measure, drafted by Representative Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican who is the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, is opposed by the White House, which argues that it would severely undermine the Affordable Care Act by allowing insurance companies to continue to sell health coverage that does not meet the higher standard of Mr. Obama’s health care law.”
“In a closed-door meeting Wednesday of House Democrats and White House officials, tensions flared as several lawmakers upbraided the administration, saying that the president had put Democrats in a tough political position by wrongly promising consumers that they could keep their existing health care plans. In fact, hundreds of thousands of Americans have received cancellation notices from their insurers because their health care coverage does not meet the minimum standards dictated by the new law.
“I’m frustrated in how it rolled out, and I let them know in no uncertain terms,” said Representative Mike Doyle, Democrat of Pennsylvania. “The point I was making in caucus to the administration is don’t give us this techno-babble that you’re going to do some administrative fix down the road. There’s a bill being put on the floor on Friday.”
The overall message of the meeting, said several attendees, was that the White House and the House Democratic leadership have until Friday to come up with a satisfactory alternative, or House Democrats may be forced to support Mr. Upton’s bill, which already has two Democratic co-sponsors: Representatives John Barrow of Georgia and Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, who represent more conservative districts.” - With Enrollment Slow, Some Democrats Back Change in Health Law, NYT, 11/13/2013
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/14/us/politics/democrats-threaten-to-abandon-obama-on-health-law-provision.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Updated: Sen. Cornyn: Democrats in 'Near Panic' Over Obamacare, newsmax, 11/13/2013
http://www.newsmax.com/NewsmaxTv/cornyn-obamacare-healthcare-panic/2013/11/13/id/536493?ns_mail_uid=11826812&ns_mail_job=1545926_11142013&promo_code=15977-1
"There's a problem, that "a small percentage of folks" (8-10 million people) are facing canceled individual market health insurance plans, and some of them are "disadvantaged" by the new options, or will be once they can see them on a functioning healthcare.gov. The President has directed his team to consider some administrative solutions to fix the problem, to "address some of those gaps."
The problem with the President's public statement is that he has now frozen the individual insurance market in place until he announces his new solutions. If you are one of the 8-10 million Americans with a canceled insurance policy, President Obama just created an enormous incentive for you to hold off on buying a new policy, to wait for the Administration to offer you a new solution.
Had they announced a new solution today, they would not have created this problem. The disincentive to buy a new plan comes from offering hope of a better outcome with no specificity or timeframe.
This new disincentive to buy insurance applies nationwide and is independent of the broken federal exchange website. I expect states running their own exchanges like California and Colorado, Minnesota and Maryland, DC, New York, and Connecticut, will see their new enrollments now drop as those with canceled policies wait for the President's next move. States participating in the federal exchange won't see any drop because the broken website is already preventing signups. Still, even in those states the President has created a new reason not to buy insurance on the exchange when it eventually does work, at least until he announces his new policy.
Because the story is so hot, and because the President's allies in Congress are desperate to offer their angry constituents some hope, we can be assured that the President's ambiguous offer of future hope, and the purchasing disincentive it creates, will get a lot of attention.
The optimistic interpretation for this new policy signal is that President Obama and his team understood this balance when the President spoke yesterday, that they weighed the cost of further discouraging new signups against the benefit of partially relieving growing pressure to help angry citizens who liked their canceled policies.” - Another Unforced Error, Keith Hennessey, 11/08/2013
Link to the entire blog post appears below:
http://keithhennessey.com/2013/11/08/individual-market-freeze/
Upset at your recent health insurance cancellation notice? You can now post your health insurance cancellation letter on the web site MyCancellation.com.
They have accumulated quite the list of letters! Apparently you are not alone.
Link to the web site is: http://mycancellation.com/ The e-mail to send your cancellation letter to is: letters@mycancellation.com .
“Health plans are sending hundreds of thousands of cancellation letters to people who buy their own coverage, frustrating some consumers who want to keep what they have and forcing others to buy more costly policies.”
“But the cancellation notices, which began arriving in August, have shocked many consumers in light of President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their plans if they liked them.
“I don’t feel like I need to change, but I have to,” said Jeff Learned, a television editor in Los Angeles, who must find a new plan for his teenage daughter, who has a health condition that has required multiple surgeries.
An estimated 14 million people purchase their own coverage because they don’t get it through their jobs. Calls to insurers in several states showed that many have sent notices.
Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people – about half of its individual business in the state. Insurer Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping about 20 percent of its individual market customers, while Independence Blue Cross, the major insurer in Philadelphia, is dropping about 45 percent.” - Thousands Of Consumers Get Insurance Cancellation Notices Due To Health Law Changes, Kaiser Health News, 10/21/2013
Update 10/26/2013
“Hundreds of thousands of Americans who purchase their own health insurance have received cancellation notices since
August because the plans do not meet Obamacare's requirements.
The number of cancellation notices greatly exceed the number of Obamacare enrollees.”
“Several states have released Obamacare enrollment data, however, revealing extremely low rates. South Dakota reported that only 23 people enrolled in the exchanges, a mere 0.0000276 percent of that state’s population. North Dakota enrolled only 20 residents.
Alaska, meanwhile, comes in at seven total enrollees, or 0.000957 percent of Alaskans.” - Health insurance cancellation notices soar above Obamacare enrollment rates, The Daily Caller, 10/24/2013
Observation:
The prior individual plans would all be "private" plans hence one would expect such plans to have a rather wide negotiated network of providers. If one receives the letter and buys "off exchange" from the same insurer (assuming the insurer sells off exchange policies), meaning one is purchasing another private plan, then the network would be rather wide as it is the same negotiated network of the same insurer.
If one dumped the current insurer and purchased from another insurer, in an off-exchange situation, one would need to examine the network but more than likely it is the particular insurer's negotiated network they have been cultivating for years.
However, say one receives the cancellation letter and goes to the ACA exchange and buys. Those networks are much more narrow as supposedly, according to insurers, the narrower network lowers price. Here is a situation that is bound to happen and one may do one's self a disservice:
(1) cancel letter arrives,
(2) one has an income that precludes a subsidy,
(3) however, rather than going off-exchange one merely goes through the ACA exchange. No subsidy is forthcoming but anyone can use the exchange regardless of subsidy or no subsidy,
(4) one applies and is approved,
(5) one has just been approved for a narrow network rather than the broader network available in the "off-exchange" world.
The entire Kaiser Health News article and Daily Caller articles appear in the links below:
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2013/October/21/cancellation-notices-health-insurance.aspx
http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/24/health-insurance-cancellation-notices-soar-above-obamacare-enrollment-rates/
Updated 11/05/2013
Flowchart of President Obama’s “You can keep your plan, period” defenses - Keith Hennessey, 11/04/2013
