Consumer Insurance Information
Two More Companies Dump Database
Friday, March 20th, 2009March 13th, 2009
The list of insurers agreeing to stop using a popular “usual and customary” database and contribute to a new independent database to determine the rate they pay out-of-network doctors and hospitals continues to grow.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced in a March 5 press release that non-profit payers Capital…
Health Care You Control
Monday, May 28th, 2007Business Week
Christopher Farrell
One family finds that health savings accounts may be the smart choice.
In the name of academic research, finance professor Stephen T. Parente got his physician wife to agree, reluctantly, to make a radical change in their family’s medical coverage. The health-economics specialist who teaches at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management…
New Tack on Copays: Cutting Them
Tuesday, May 15th, 2007Personal Journal
Vanessa Fuhrmans
Desperate for ways to curb soaring health-care costs, a groundswell of employers and health insurers are turning to a radically different approach: motivate patients to take not just the cheapest medicines, but the ones they need the most.
Over the past decade, health plans have sought to save money by shifting costs onto workers…
Many of the Self-Employed Are Simply on Their Own
Saturday, May 5th, 2007The New York Times
Milt Freudenheim
The small businesses that struggle the most with health insurance may be the smallest of all: those with only one employee.
In 11 states, self-employed people have some of the same legal rights as small companies when it comes to dealing with insurers: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire…
Insurance Costs Can Soar Easily at Small Businesses
Saturday, May 5th, 2007The New York Times
Milt Freudenheim
At A Small Business, One Illness Can Send Insurance Costs Soaring
To understand the challenges of insuring the health of the nation’s work force, consider Varney’s Book Store.
After a long bout with emphysema an employee at Varney’s, a family-owned business in Manhattan, Kan., died several years ago. But for Varney’s health insurer…
We Lost Our Health Insurance
Sunday, August 15th, 2004PARADE
Dotson Rader
Ten years ago, PARADE Contributing Editor Dotson Rader reported on the President’s Task Force on Health Care Reform, an important federal initiative that sought to repair America’s failing health care system. At the time, 37 million Americans were without health insurance coverage. While a majority of the country favored a new national health care…