Insurance

State Makes It Tougher For Health Insurers To Cancel Policies

August 9, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> California's new rules let applicants say they're not sure or they can't remember the answer to a health history question. Federal health reform allows insurers to cancel a policy only if there was intent to deceive. Jamie Court directs the nonprofit group <a href="../../../">Consumer Watchdog</a>. "Having the double whammy of both the new federal rules and the state insurance commissioner's regulations, makes it very clear to insurance companies what they can and cannot do," said Court. </p>

Illinois Insurance Regulators Want More Oversight

August 7, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

Illinois regulators will ask lawmakers for the authority to approve or deny health insurance rate increases, saying residents need protection from skyrocketing costs that aren't justified. The state's effort to push for more aggressive oversight is "a huge step forward," in protecting an estimated 3 million residents covered by state-regulated policies, said Carmen Balber, director of Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that monitors how states regulate insurance rates. "We're talking about a product that in just a few years every American will have to have," Balber said. "With skyrocketing costs and mandatory coverage, regulators have to act to protect consumers from what would an unaffordable requirement."

States Implement Reforms of Healthcare as Lawsuits Proceed

August 6, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> The California-based nonprofit Consumer Watchdog made that point in a letter sent Tuesday to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius urging her to reject Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (R) application for a rate review grant. The letter criticizes the governor’s application because California would use the money to hire actuaries to review rate filings without giving them the authority to reject rate requests. “I think the intent of the grants was specifically to enhance states’ ability to thoroughly evaluate and, where it can, to approve or disapprove rates,” said Carmen Balber, the group’s Washington director. </p> <p>   </p>

Top 10 Reasons You Can’t Trust Mercury Insurance

August 4, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

For years, Mercury Insurance illegally overcharged hundreds of thousands of California drivers hundreds of dollars per year, until they were forced to stop in the wake of a Court of Appeal decision in 2005.

The Next Health Reform Debate: What’s an ‘Unreasonable’ Insurance Premium Hike?

August 3, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> Carmen Balber, director of the Washington office for Consumer Watchdog, an insurance industry critic that has been keeping close tabs on the law's implementation, said that increased public scrutiny has served to pull back some insurance companies. But, she said, that isn't enough. "There's only so much that shaming the industry will do," she said. What really needs to happen, she said, is for state regulators to get the resources and political power to investigate and crack down on unjustified rate hikes. "That's why the state grant program is so important," she said. </p>

Health Insurance Rates: California Plans to Crack Down, But How Hard?

July 30, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> <strong>As an Aug. 31 deadline nears, state lawmakers haggle over how difficult it should be for companies to significantly raise premiums.</strong> </p> <p> Consumer groups, meanwhile, say that allowing insurance companies to pick the actuaries who review their filings would give them too much influence over the process. "Insurance companies in California will be getting millions of new customers, and the least that Californians should get in return is strong oversight of rates and premiums," said Judy Dugan, research director for Consumer Watchdog in Santa Monica. "Instead, the governor's proposal would prevent effective oversight." </p>

Insurance lobbying thriller

July 28, 2010  ·  Judy Dugan

<p> Can insurance company lobbying of federal health regulation be turned into a gripping spy thriller? OK, no. But this is as close as it gets... <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendell-potter/health-insurers-leaning-o_b_661498.html">a Huffpost story by former insurance exec Wendell Potter.</a> He's crystal-clear about the lengths to which for-profit insurance companies will go, if it means they can keep their record profits and obscene executive salaries at the expense of Americans struggling to get or afford health care. And they're assuming that no one is really watching. Thanks, Wendell. </p>

You Can’t Trust Mercury Insurance

July 26, 2010  ·  Jamie Court

<h2 class="rtecenter"> <img class=" size-full wp-image-2160" alt="" src="https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/images_canttrustmercury-pagemasthead.gif" style="width: 555px; height: 183px;" width="555" height="183" /></h2> <p>  </p> <p class="rtecenter"> <b>Mercury Is At It Again - It Wants To Repeal Consumer Protection<br /> Laws That Voters Defended in 2010</b></p>

Web 2.0 hearing overshadowed by politics

July 23, 2010  ·  John M. Simpson

Consumer Watchdog's John Simpson testified at a <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5040:qgovernment-20-part-i-federal-agency-use-of-web-20-technologies&catid=48:hearings&Itemid=29">hearing</a> yesterday on federal agency use of Web 2.0 technology, but the hearing got off to a rocky start when Ranking Member Patrick McHenry (R-NC) opted for a procedural gimmick and even introduced a motion to adjourn the hearing before the witnesses were able to testify.<a href="http://oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5040:qgovernment-20-part-i-federal-agency-use-of-web-20-technologies&catid=48:hearings&Itemid=29"></a>

What the new consumer financial regulator looks like

July 22, 2010  ·  Carmen Balber

<img src="http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/images/blog/4529835/THLAsml.jpg" alt="THLAsml.jpg" title="THLAsml.jpg" width="300" height="200" align="right"/>I flew back to Los Angeles this week to touch base with colleagues in CW's Santa Monica...

Rivals Say Google Has Too Much Sway Over Administration’s Net Neutrality Policy

July 19, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> <strong>Internet service providers cite e-mails between onetime Google executive Andrew McLaughlin, who now works for the White House, and his former colleagues as the FCC prepares to rewrite the rules governing broadband.</strong> </p> <p> McLaughlin's e-mails were<strong> </strong>obtained through a public records request filed by Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica nonprofit advocacy group, and were first reported on by The Hill, a Washington newspaper. John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog said the e-mails suggested that Google, an Internet behemoth with $23.7 billion in annual revenue, had too cozy of a relationship with the White House. "You have to sort of wonder, well, how many times did Alan Davidson pick the phone up and have a conversation with McLaughlin?" Simpson said. "It shows an attitude and connection that seems to me to be ongoing and inappropriate." </p>

U.S. Health Reform Spurs Battles in States Over Premium Rate Increases

July 19, 2010  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> OLDWICK, N.J. --Since the passage of U.S. health care reform, battles have erupted in some states between insurance commissioners and health insurers over double-digit premium rate increases sought by insurers on members in their individual and small group health plans. With more talk at the federal level about the need for oversight of excessive rates, insurance commissioners are interested in showing that they are acting to protect consumers, said Carmen Balber, director of the Washington, D.C. office for Consumer Watchdog. Insurance departments are scrutinizing premium rates because consumers "have reached their breaking point," said Balber. Complaints are rolling into departments from consumers who cannot pay "the outrageous prices" insurers are charging, she said.<br /> </p>