Kevin Knauss: Health, History, Travel, Insurance
Posts related to health and life insurance in California, Covered California, rates, subsidies, short term medical and travel plans.
However, I still don’t understand why the costs for services for Southern California Kaiser members are so much lower than prices for Northern California members. Does Kaiser just have more members in Southern California to spread the fixed costs of supplying the services over? Kaiser charges 29% more for a colonoscopy in Northern California than Southern California. Are more people getting colonoscopies in Southern California so the volumes of patients help drive down the costs?
Secretary Price’s positions on health insurance and health care are indefensible. They are cruel. They will devastate the lives of many women and children. I can only hope that voters wake up and take note of how Price and his Republican colleagues are hell bent on denying health care services to their children and neighbors and vote these people out of office. Women in America are not safe as long as Secretary Price is in charge of HHS.
But if you don’t have an account, are trying to help a family member or friend, or are just checking to see if you current mental health provider might be covered in a new health plan, you will have to swim in the sea of confusion for finding the doctor or counselor. Some of the health plans have great online directories and others really suck. Here is an overview of what I learned.
Since the beginning of health care reform under President Obama there has been intense speculation about how the health insurance companies will react when setting rates for the various health plans they offer. Health insurance is not a commodity like wheat, oil, or pork bellies where the market place of buyers and sellers agree upon a price. While competition does impact the rates to a certain degree, health insurance prices are largely determined by the health care services to be covered, the cost of health care services, and the expected claims for those services within a geographical location where the plan is being offered.
Given the Republican philosophy that less government is better government, Covered California’s reason for existence may evaporate. But it all hinges on Trump’s term ‘transition’. Does he want to transition away from the Marketplace Exchanges, or is he merely suggesting transitioning away the Qualified Health Plans as a requirement for the tax credit?
Now there is an alternative to traditional health insurance that is aimed at fitness buffs and gym owners. SHM FIT combines a health care expenses sharing group with a high deductible catastrophic health plan to offer health insurance premiums that may be less than traditional insurance.
Covered California has given their online health insurance enrollment system a serious make over with the release of the CalHEERS 17.2 build. Not only has the user interface been enhanced, members must now enter their employer’s contact information before they will be eligible for the monthly subsidy. In addition, Covered California will begin notifying a member’s employer when they enroll or renew their Covered California health insurance.
The California Department of Health Care released a report confirming that several health plans may have had inaccurate provider directories for their member to search through. The Timely Access Report year 2015 reviewed several different measurements to determine if health plan members could obtain timely access to health care services. The report noted that 13 health plans listed Primary Care Physicians who were not in the health plan’s provider network.
After Covered California acknowledged at the January 2017 Board meeting that they had system issues that affected over 40,000 consumers, new enrollment problems seem to be boiling up. Some consumers have reported that household members who are ineligible for Covered California family dental plans have been automatically enrolled in dental insurance in 2017. In some very rare instances, the Covered California system is allowing consumers to actively enroll in two different subsidized health plans.
A Texas U.S. District Court Judge ordered the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) not to enforce rules against discriminating against transgender health care services in health insurance policies. The order was issued on December 31, 2016 before the new nondiscrimination rules were set to go into effect. The nondiscrimination rules are part of Section 1557, the nondiscrimination provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). A lawsuit brought by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
