In health insurance-aimed cost-cutting maneuvers, Walmart won’t subsidize health insurance for future employees who work fewer than 24 hours a week. Also, new part-timers who work fewer than 33 weekly hours won’t be able to add spouses to their plans. And like workers at most any other company, full-timers with complete health benefits will have more deducted from their paychecks. [More]
health insurance
Businesses Try To Cut Insurance Costs By Coaxing Workers To Get Healthy
By 9.29.11
With health insurance premiums rising fast, businesses are looking to keep expenses down by encouraging employees to improve their health, thus cutting down on the cost of care they’ll use. More companies are offering on-site gym access and check-ups, discounts on healthy cafeteria food and incentives to get workers to quit smoking. [More]
New Law Has Put 1 Million More Young Adults On Parents' Health Insurance
By 9.22.11
A 2010 health insurance law that allows those under age 26 to stick to their parents’ health insurance plans has allowed 1 million presumably uninsured adults in the age group to find coverage. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the amount of young adults who lack health insurance has fallen from 34 percent from the beginning of 2010 to 30 percent in March. [More]
Woman Loses Insurance Because She Paid With Credit Card
By 9.21.11
Andrea has been a customer with Anthem since 1995, paying her bill all the time and never submitting any claims. So you can see why they canceled her coverage. [More]
Nearly 50 Million Americans Lacked Health Insurance In 2010
By 9.14.11
Unemployment and an erosion in employer-provided benefits are some of the major reasons the amount of uninsured American rose to 49.9 million last year. That’s 900,000 more than in 2009, according to Census data. Gone are the days that it was a given that your workplace handed you an insurance plan. In 2000, 64.1 percent of the population were covered by employer-provided insurance, but those ranks slipped to 55.3 percent last year. [More]
PA Judge Deems Health Insurance Mandate Unconstitutional
By 9.13.11
Even though three U.S. Courts of Appeal have ruled on challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — though they haven’t all agreed — and it will all inevitably be decided by the Supreme Court, lower courts are apparently still issuing rulings on the matter. [More]
WellPoint Hiring Jeopardy-Champ Computer To Make Treatment Decisions For Customers
By 9.12.11
We’re sure that most of you were sitting around thinking that the one thing the U.S. health insurance business needs is to be even less human than it is currently. And it looks like the folks at the health insurance behemoth WellPoint have heard those thoughts, because they have decided to “hire” Watson, the IBM supercomputer that beat two humans on Jeopardy earlier this year to help them decide on issues of treatment for policyholders. [More]
Federal Appeals Court In Virginia Tosses Out Challenge To Health Care Reform
By 9.8.11
The final of three federal appeals court rulings on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has come down, and this round goes to the White House. [More]
Proposed New Health Insurance Forms Seek To Make Sense Of It All
By 8.17.11
Much about the health insurance business is deliberately byzantine, intended to discourage customers from understanding all the fine details of their policies. But today the Department of Health and Human Services proposed a new way of labeling insurance policies that would spell out the costs and benefits of health plans in easy-to-understand language. [More]
Striking Verizon Workers To Lose Benefits If Strike Continues
By 8.17.11
Verizon isn’t too thrilled with the idea that it’s paying for health insurance benefits for 45,000 striking workers. Thus, the telecom giant has said it will cease funding certain benefits if those employees aren’t back on the job by the end of the month. [More]
Appeals Court Rules Mandatory Health Care Coverage Unconstitutional
By 8.12.11
The legal battle over health care reform continued this morning after an appeals court in Atlanta ruled that the portion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requiring Americans to have some sort of health insurance is unconstitutional. [More]
Walgreens To Start Selling Health Insurance
By 8.9.11
Come this fall, when you go to your local Walgreens to pick up your prescription, you may also be able to shop for a health insurance plan, as CNN reports that the country’s largest drugstore chain is about to get into the insuring business. [More]
Getting HIPAA Certificate Of Creditable Coverage Like Pulling Tooth From Dragon's Maw
By 7.28.11
Sarek tells the story of how he was able finally get a “certificate of creditable coverage” from his COBRA administrators. After many moons of pleas, what it finally took was writing a physical letter to the presidents of each four companies at the same time. At the top of the letter was the address of each of the other companies so that all knew that he was showing off their unsightly bits to the other. [More]
Panel: Birth Control Should Be Covered By Insurance Without Co-Pay
By 7.20.11
Yesterday, an Institute of Medicine panel released its recommendations to the federal government about which services for women should insurance companies be obliged to cover. Chief among the eight recommendations was that birth control should be made available without need for a patient copay. [More]
Co-Eds Say It's Sexier If You Have Health Insurance
By 7.19.11
According to a new survey, 90% of college students say that they were attracted to someone and then found out they had health insurance, they would be more likely to be more attracted to him or her. So forget shopping for sexy lingerie, or perfecting your conversational skills, if you really want to attract the ladies or the fellas, you should call a health insurance broker or get a job with health benefits. [More]
How To Appeal A Health Insurance Denial
By 7.15.11
Getting your health insurance claim denied can feel like insult added to injury, but if you take these steps you can get your claim “rehabbed,” and get your money. [More]
Uninsured Californian: I'm Stuck With $40K Medical Bill After Being Taken To Hospital Against My Will
By 7.11.11
An uninsured man in California is fighting a $40,000 hospital bill because the paramedics who arrived on the scene of his motorcycle accident took him to the emergency room even though he repeatedly asked them not to. [More]
If I Hadn't Checked, CVS Would Have Charged $228 For A $28 Generic
By 6.22.11
Had David’s wife not probed closely, she could have ended up paying $228 for generic Fosamax that could have been easily gotten for $24. He’s sharing the story as a cautionary tale so that other people who are getting their maintenance prescriptions covered by their employer’s insurance don’t end up overpaying for generics. [More]
