Angry Patients Stuck With Big Medical Bills After “Bait And Switch”
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
BOSTON (CBS) – The national health care reform law requires insurance companies to cover 100% of the cost of screening tests for dozens of potentially deadly diseases. But thousands of patients are finding out the hard way that free doesn’t always mean free. When Jim Dungee had his first colonoscopy, doctors found several polyps, which are a precursor to colon cancer. “Therefore, I had to come back in three years,” he said. The three year mark was back in December. Knowing the test could save his life, Jim did not hesitate to make an appointment. He even called his insurance...
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
Boxer: Insurance rightstrumps religious rights
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
Senator Boxer warned yesterday that if the HHS contraception mandate was repealed it would set a dangerous precedence of religious rights trumping the right to be insured. On MSNBC's Politics Nation with Al Sharpton last night, Boxer affirmed that under the proposed amendment proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt, an employer would not be forced by the government to pay for medical practices against his religion. "I mean, are they serious? Sharpton exclaimed, "How do you make a law where an employer can decide his own religious beliefs violate your right to be insured?" "Oh Absolutely," Boxer said,
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
On Healthcare Reform, That's Not the Patient on the Table
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
On January 20, 2012, the Obama administration announced a clarification – one of many – on its requirement that all insurance policies must cover contraceptives, sterilization, abortions, and abortion-causing drugs (such as RU-486). From the beginning, there had been a foolish assumption that Obamacare would not cover abortion – Bart Stupak and others even voted for it on the president’s commitment that it would not. As if anyone with an ounce of sense would ever believe that this president would ever take a position contrary to one of his party’s most dependable and key constituents, the abortion lobby. When, over...
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
OBAMACARE ARCHITECT: Expect STEEP INCREASE In Health Care PREMIUMS
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
Medical insurance premiums in the United States are on the rise, the chief architect of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul has told The Daily Caller.Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Jonathan Gruber, who also devised former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s statewide health care reforms, is backtracking on an analysis he provided the White House in support of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, informing officials in three states that the price of insurance premiums will dramatically increase under the reforms. In an email to The Daily Caller, Gruber framed this new reality in terms of the same human self-interest that some...
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
White House Dictates Compromise on Contraception Mandate
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
In an effort to quell rising opposition to its mandate for all employers to provide contraceptive coverage in healthcare benefits to workers, the White House issued a directive that it maintains “ends the discussion.” Under the directive insurers would be required to provide this coverage “free of charge” to employers. “By putting the onus on the insurers we’ve given the Catholic Church ‘plausible deniability,’” said Press Secretary Jay Carney. “The Church itself will not be formally linked to the provision of services that it says violate its religious beliefs. No court can hold it culpable. The responsibility has been taken...
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
OBAMA’S PLOY ADDS INSULT TO INJURY
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on President Obama’s revised healthcare plan as it affects Catholic institutions:President Obama’s latest ploy just adds insult to injury. If the insurance plan of a Catholic institution must cover services it deems immoral, then such a healthcare plan is offensive, plain and simple.The Catholic League, for example, uses Christian Brothers as its insurance carrier. So if a future employee of ours were to demand free abortion-inducing drugs, and she is allowed to request free drugs from Christian Brothers, then the rest of us would, in effect, be subsidizing her abortion. This is outrageous and...
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
Will All Medical Insurance Policies Have to Cover The Abortion Pill?
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
What if Obama lifts the regulation that requires Catholic institutions to offer their employees medical insurance policies that cover the abortion pill? Is there another regulation that requires all insurers to only offer medical insurance policies that include such coverage? If so, from whom would the Catholic institution purchase the medical insurance?
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
Budget lines drawn at (Iowa) Statehouse: GOP plan includes state workers paying for insurance
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
DES MOINES — Legislative Republicans proposed Thursday to spend $182 million less than Gov. Terry Branstad’s $6.242 billion budget plan for next fiscal year and about $119 million under majority Senate Democrats’ targets by providing less money to education, human services and economic incentives and requiring state employees and elected officials to pay $200 a month for their health insurance coverage. All three competing and contrasting fiscal 2013 budget approaches offered by the governor and leaders of the split-control Legislature would fully fund spending commitments already approved last session, including a 2 percent “allowable growth” increase for K-12 public schools...
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
Three States to Require Insurers to Disclose Climate-Change Response Plans
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
Insurance commissioners in California, New York and Washington State will require that companies disclose how they intend to respond to the risks their businesses and customers face from increasingly severe storms and wildfires, rising sea levels and other consequences of climate change, California’s commissioner said Wednesday. “Our experience and other states’ experience as regulators is you get a far better response rate if you require response to be provided than if you just allow companies to decide when and how they will respond,” said Dave Jones, the California commissioner. “Our goal is to have the most complete, best and accurate...
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
Dave Says Insurance, Insurance
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
Dear Dave, I’ve got auto insurance, but can you tell me what other kinds of insurance are good to have? Chris Dear Chris, The purpose of insurance is to transfer risk that you can’t afford to take. Most people can’t afford to have a heart attack and triple bypass surgery. Having to pay for something like that completely out of pocket would bankrupt just about anyone. That’s why health insurance is a vital part of any good financial plan. It’s also important to have auto, which you do, and homeowner’s insurance, too. If you don’t own a home, make sure...
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
Texas health insurance rebates are on the line
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
It sounds too good to be true, and if Texas regulators have their way, it won't happen. About 690,000 consumers are slated to get an estimated $160 million in rebates from health insurance companies by Aug. 1. But the Texas Insurance Department wants to slash that amount by three-fourths and phase in changes slowly. The department says the individual insurance market could be destabilized if companies have to make the payments and cut into profits. Consumer groups say that everything will be fine and that customers deserve their full refunds. A federal decision is expected within two weeks. The rebates...
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
"Fatti Maschii Parole Femine" Should Be, "Fatti Totalitaria Parole Liberale"
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
(For the short version, skip to the "Body of Comment" section.) This is a personal rant, and is why I will leave Maryland as soon as I can afford to. Please indulge. Thank you. The state of Maryland kicks a man while he is down. April 2010, I lost my job as a computer programmer. Though I interview at least twice a week, jobs are competitive and very hard to get. Perhaps my biggest pet peeve is the trend for employers to tell me, "You're hired. You will start as soon as we get the budget for the project approved."...
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
Starting now, state workers, families to pay more for medical care
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
State workers and their families will pay more for medical care starting Jan. 1 under the latest changes to emerge from a state law that wiped out most public employee union rights. The changes in the state health plan require 183,000 participants to pay 10 percent of their bills for doctor visits, tests, surgeries and hospitalizations up to an annual maximum of $500 for single people and $1,000 for families. Health plan administrators have explained the new system previously, but they expect to get a lot more questions when workers begin reaching into their pockets. "I think the reality will...
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
RUSH: We Stand for Principle Over Politics and the Establishment Can't Stand It
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
We Stand for Principle Over Politicsand the Establishment Can't Stand It December 21, 2011 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: "House Democrats tried Wednesday to force a vote on the Senate’s two-month extension of the payroll-tax cut, but Republicans gaveled the House closed to prevent them from having a chance, as top GOP leaders huddled down the hall to try to figure a way out of the mess. The House was set to hold a pro forma session, but two top Democrats, Reps. Steny H. Hoyer and Chris Van Hollen, demanded to be recognized to try to force a vote on the...
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
Obamacare Mandate Kicking Insurance Agents To The Curb
Posted by admin / Under Insurance
In an environment where jobs are hard to find, the Obama administration has thrown more than 100,000 health insurance agents and brokers under the bus and given them the gift of an unemployment line just before the holidays. To make matters worse, a large number of insurance agents, known in the trade as producers, are self-employed and under the prevailing laws may have difficulty receiving unemployment insurance.
Published on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 11:58:48 AM
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