Insurance Space

Small businesses and self-employed individuals hope to get better deals on health insurance through the new exchanges that would be created under health care reform legislation.

These new marketplaces should provide up to 30 million Americans with an easy-to-use way to shop for coverage by offering a menu of plans, presented in a Web-based standardized format. By creating a large pool of customers, the exchanges should be able to get better insurance at a lower cost than individuals or small businesses could get on their own.

Union leaders opposed to a Senate plan to tax the most expensive employer-provided health benefits said Democrats face losses in this year’s U.S. congressional elections if they fail to support labor’s agenda.

“This is a moment that cries out for political courage, but it is not much in evidence,” Richard Trumka, head of the 11 million-member AFL-CIO labor federation, said yesterday in a speech before he and other union leaders met with President Barack Obama, who supports the tax. Trumka warned of a repeat of 1994, when Democrats lost control of Congress, if lawmakers back a health-care overhaul without heeding labor’s concerns.

President Barack Obama said the health-care legislation he anticipates signing this year will have an immediate impact by expanding coverage to the uninsured and requiring insurers to accept customers regardless of pre- existing conditions.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said the measure making its way through Congress would build a new foundation for economic growth by reining in health-care costs and making affordable health care more available.

While many of the changes won’t take place for several years, “there are dozens of protections and benefits that will take effect this year,” he said.

Senate Democrats will have the upper hand as U.S. lawmakers return to Washington this month to confront the last major hurdle in the effort to overhaul the nation’s health-care system.

With Democrats in both chambers under pressure to craft compromise legislation, the biggest areas of contention are the different taxes the House and Senate chose to fund their bills, how strictly to bar federal money for abortion and whether to create a government-run program to compete with private insurers.

North Dakota Republican Gov. John Hoeven’s budget plan includes a proposal that many Democrats have advocated for years.

It broadens eligibility for a health insurance program for children that’s financed by the state and federal government. It’s called the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP.

Right now a North Dakota family whose income is 150 percent of the federal poverty level is eligible for coverage. In October, the Department of Human Services said 3,800 children were enrolled.

Hoeven is proposing to raise the standard to 200 percent. That means a family of four with an income of $42,400 or less may be eligible.

Remember all that talk about building something similar to Massachusetts’ connector system, where employers would pay into a hub and individuals could sign up for health insurance, and take it with them between employers? That turned into a project called the Health Insurance Partnership, run by the Health Care Authority.

In addition to halving new enrollment in the Basic Health Plan, the agency is also pulling the plug on the partnership to make it’s target of $15 million in cuts by June.

“We won’t even start it up,” said HCA Director Steve Hill.

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- A proposal unveiled Wednesday by the health insurance industry would provide universal health coverage and hack away at medical costs through an outside group, and it has seen initial praise from an unlikely source.

The proposal, offered by the America’s Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP, trade group, comes on the heels of a universal health care proposal offered by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., as well as pledges by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D- Mass., to move quickly on the issue in 2009.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Harry and Louise are back for an encore.

A series of political ads starring the fictional couple back in 1994 helped sour the public’s view of President Clinton’s plan for universal health coverage.

Now, the two are back asking the presidential contenders to make health care their top domestic priority.

The latest Harry and Louise ads, starring the same actors as the earlier ads, will run during the Democratic and Republican Party conventions. While the kitchen table scene will look familiar, the concerns they raise will differ. Previously, Louise spoke of rationing — “you know, long waits for health care and some services not even available.”

Premiums look low, but you give up a lot of expensive medical coverage—that is, you transfer the risk from the insurer to yourself.

Infomercial king Billy Mays, known for screaming about the wonders of cleaning solutions Kaboom!, OxiClean, and other household products, is now starring in a commercial for what he calls “the most important product I’ve ever endorsed:” health insurance. The bearded salesman started pitching iCan Benefit Group’s “health insurance that you can actually afford” in May 2008, pointing to the need for its health plans given that 47 million Americans are uninsured. In the commercial, Mays says iCan’s plans include guaranteed acceptance, starting as low as $160 per month for individuals and $260 for families, and can allow you to lower your monthly premium, increase coverage, or both. Concludes Mays: “You can’t afford not to make this call.”

More than any other age group, senior citizens require health cover the most. However, given the number of senior citizens being hospitalised, insurers have hiked rates to a large percentage of the sum insured.

For instance, if a 25-year-old individual pays 1.5% of the sum assured as a premium, then the same number can be as high as 8% of the sum assured for a 60-year-old individual.

“An insurer prices a policy based on two risk factors. One; for how long an individual is required to stay in the hospital and two, what the individual stands to lose because of the sickness. These risk factors are high and are common among the senior citizens,” said Rahul Aggarwal, CEO, Optima Insurance Brokers and CEO click2insure.in.