Insurance

Insurers’ naked greed triggers White House response

September 10, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Karen-Ignagni.pdf">A message Thursday</a> from Health and Human Services chief Kathleen Sebelius is unusual not just for its tough language toward health insurers, but because it exists at all. In a letter to the insurance industry's lobbying and trade association, Sebelius flatly warns insurers to cut it out with blaming their double-digit price hikes on federal health reform. </p>

Top lobbyist Karen Ignagni pleads for insurers’ freedom–to charge whatever they want

September 8, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> If you believe that health insurance companies will really go broke if they don't get 20% premium increases during a deep recession, raise your hand. Ah, the one hand I see raised is Karen Ignagni's. She's the top lobbyist for the health insurance industry, and president of America's Health Insurance Plans. She's pleading for Congress not to regulate health insurance rates, no matter how bad her clients look to the rest of us. All we need to do, in her view, is trust the insurance industry's own math. </p>

Health insurance rate hikes cry out for regulation

September 8, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

Janet Adamy in the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703720004575478200948908976.html">Wall Street Journal reports</a> (subscription necessary) that health insurers across the country are using the health reform law as an excuse to justify their latest round of rate hikes for individual insurance policies...

Will ‘progressives’ let middle class burn to prove their point?

August 30, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> When Anthem Blue Cross announced its controversial premium increases in California recently, the insurer claimed, "a carrier must be able to receive actuarially sound rates." So it is remarkable that "progressive" San Francisco State Senator Mark Leno, a single payer health care advocate, recently introduced eleventh hour legislation codifying Anthem Blue Cross's "actuarially sound" defense of premium increases in law. </p>

New rates at Blue Cross are a meager victory

August 25, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> At the shoe store, 40% off qualifies as at least pretty good. So why does regulators' approval of new, lower rates by Blue Cross of California not feel like victory? There are lots of reasons, but first is that the revised Blue Cross rate hikes are still in double digits, averaging 14% and as high as 20%, while average wages are still falling. And Blue Cross could announce another rate hike whenever it pleases, just as many insurers continue to do. </p>

Instead of Requested Increase in Rates, Liberty Mutual Gets Large Decrease

August 25, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> In August 2008, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company submitted applications to the California Department of Insurance for a rate increase of 4% and revisions to its auto rating factor plan (that’s the plan an insurer uses to distribute rates among its different policyholders, for example, charging less to someone who drives 5,000 miles versus charging more to someone who drives 15,000 miles).</p>

Health reform regulation scorecard: The big stuff is headed to court

August 19, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> Wouldn't it be great if we could all deduct our federal income and investment taxes from next year's income? And if we could also deduct that stress-reducing trip to a spa in Bora Bora? And if the government would just take our word for it? Fantasy for us, but the health insurance industry think that's what federal health reform ought to allow, on a corporate scale. </p>

Seattle Story: Pretty good ending

August 17, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> The worst definitely didn't happen in Seattle. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners deferred the worst insurance industry demands for weakening the implementation of health care reform. For a body so closely linked to...</p>

States Get Funds to Boost Oversight of Health Insurance Premiums

August 17, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> <strong>The $1-million grants, which went to all but five states, will help many expand public access to information about rate hikes and hire experts to review proposed charges.</strong></p>

Obama’s victory lap in rush hour gridlocks LA to raise $1 million for Congress

August 17, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> It took my wife an hour and half to make the two mile commute home Monday, after the secret service closed some of LA's busiest streets at rush hour to shuttle the president from his Beverly Hills hotel to a fundraiser for Congress...</p>

Seattle on Monday: Insurance commissioners blink in the spotlight

August 17, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> If there's one thing the National Association of Insurance Commissioners don't see much of, it's public attention. Now, however, it's got the attention of the media, consumer advocates and at least part of an increasingly aware public....</p>

HHS rate review grants contain stand-outs and sabotage

August 16, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced today that HHS awarded $46 million in rate review grant funds to 45 states. But how much new protection will consumers gain from double-digit premium increases?