Prescription for Change Blog
Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico customers spoke out forcefully last week against yet another double-digit premium increase. But instead of protecting consumers, state regulators appear poised to side with the health insurer. Read more »
Some of the biggest health plans have been accumulating huge surpluses even as they ask consumers to pay higher and higher rates. What gives? Read more »
Do you have pre-existing medical conditions that caused you to be denied for insurance coverage? Have you been uninsured for at least six months? If so then we have some potentially good news for you today. Read more »
Remember earlier this year when Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield filed for rate increases as high as 39% for California health insurance customers? Consumers were outraged, the state insurance commission investigated and found “flaws” and “miscalculations”, BCBS had little choice but to withdraw the increases. But in Texas, BCBS has been up to the same tricks, raising premiums by double digits for some policy holders and now they're trying to keep us from even seeing the rate filings. Read more »
That’s the number of rate increases that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas filed for their individual insurance policies to go into effect between January 2007 and May 2010. To be fair, they spread these increases out amongst as many as twenty-five different individual insurance forms. It doesn’t take a mathematician though to quickly figure out that BCBS of Texas is raising rates multiple times per year on many of their individual policies. It did however take an open records request filed to the Texas Department of Insurance to dig up this information. Read more »
After spending decades struggling under a health care system that favors large employers, health reform will finally level the playing ground for small business owners and the self-employed so they can better attract quality workers and afford coverage for themselves and their employees. Read more »
I wish I could say that health care reform passed and we can just pick up and move on to the next issue, but it’s just not that simple. Although you’re not hearing about health reform on the evening news and the front page of your local paper much anymore, things haven’t slowed down a bit. So keep those sleeves rolled up and read on to learn how you can still be involved. Read more »
The White House announced today that it’s moving up the start date to June 1st for the new retiree reinsurance program in the health reform bill. The program is designed specifically for Americans in early retirement – those between the ages of 55 and 64 who are eligible to maintain health insurance through their former employer but are not quite old enough for Medicare, which kicks in at age 65. Read more »
There's more than meets the evening news soundbyte in the health care reform law. Here are ten things you might not know are in the law, but are certain to have an impact on consumers. Read more »
Senate opponents are pulling out silly tricks and amendments this week to delay vote on health reform benefits that Americans need Read more »
Heard health reform will destroy Medicare or bust our budget? Think we should 'slow down?' Get the facts about these and other myths that the opposition is using to scare Americans away from real change. Read more »
Insurers blame their shockingly high premium increases on rising medical costs, but they aren’t telling us the whole story. Insurance companies engage in some ruthless practices that "justify" rate increases far larger than medical inflation. Read more »
Health insurance hasn't proven to be the best market for head to head competition. Rather than improving price and service, companies began to increase profits by picking the healthy and shedding the sick. Read more »
Today, loving families struggling to pay big medical bills sometimes have to consider divorce as the only means to cover a sick child or spouse. Read more »
States can’t even keep health insurance rates down when the insurance company is sitting on piles and piles of surplus cash (and investments). Read more »
Those who say we should scrap the health reform bill and start over have yet to say what would happen differently the next time. It took a year to get to this point--with efforts to reach compromises large and small dating back to this time last year. Read more »
Rather than try and insure everyone, perhaps we should just try and insure the sick people. The problem is, states have been trying that idea for years and it's time we learn from failure. Read more »
In Sunday's New York Times, Newt Gingrich announced that tort reform would save the health care system $600 billion a year--a breathtaking number, but unfounded. Read more »
As Washington tries to come together on a health reform plan, opponents are still throwing out the same old ‘solutions’ that they claim will lower costs and get more folks health coverage. The only problem is, they don’t. Read more »
California insurance regulators, federal agency heads and Congress are all responding to Anthem's huge rate increases with, well, saber rattling. Because the rate increase is probably perfectly legal under existing insurance law--a law that works great for insurance companies and not so great for people. That's why so many millions of Americans desperately need Congress to finish and pass health reform. Read more »
Would a few simple changes to the way health insurance works fix our health care system? Consumer Reports is looking at the ideas now circulating. See what our investigations come up with. Read more »
If so, relax. You’re probably all worked up about four of the myths polluting this debate. Read more »
Health insurance must be affordable for American families if we are all to buy it. So how do we get there? Read more »
You probably haven’t heard much about the proposed ‘insurance exchange’ in the health reform bills. It doesn’t make sexy fodder for political talk shows. But it very well could be one of the most important things Congress does to get health reform right – and the Senate and House bills take different approaches to the exchange. How they’re combined in the final bill could make all the difference to health reform’s success. Read more »
The next few weeks we’ll see furious work in Washington on a final health reform bill, as both House and Senate leaders attempt to merge their respective bills into one measure that gives all Americans access to affordable, reliable health coverage. Read more »
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