Gov. Chet Culver of Iowa proposed a group of insurance company mandates designed to make healthcare more affordable while laying the foundation for universal coverage, such as requiring insurance companies to permit young adults to stay on their parents' insurance plans until their 25th birthday. Insurance companies also would be compelled to give coverage to individuals who switch from group plans to individual plans, without a waiting period for the new plan to begin or underwriting the person for pre-existing conditions which were previously covered.
The latest upheaval in the U.S. bond market is threatening two major Minnesota hospital chains with serious financial pain. Park Nicollet Health Care Services will pay an extra $86,000 in interest on its outstanding debt in one week alone. And if Fairview Health Services can't refinance its $450 million in debt, the chain of hospitals and clinics could see a jump in its interest rates that would cost it an extra $3.5 million a month.
Massachusetts officials are considering raising premiums as much as 14 percent and doubling some copayments for the a subsidized insurance program. State officials said they want to ensure that the program does not collapse under the weight of soaring costs or under a potential influx of residents whose employers drop coverage because the program offers a better deal for their workers. But some say the hikes would price people out of the program.
Four years ago, officials in Montgomery County, MD, launched Montgomery Cares, a program to care for the uninsured. Through the program, officials pledged to cover half of the county's estimated 80,000 uninsured residents by 2010. But two years from the deadline, officials say they won't come close to meeting their goal despite the opening of three new clinics and a 58 percent increase in the number of people receiving care.
In a public-private partnership to help thousands of seniors struggling to pay for prescription drugs, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley plans to announce today a deal with CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield to help cover those caught in a Medicare gap. The agreement would help seniors bridge the "doughnut hole," a much criticized cost-saving measure built into the Medicare prescription drug benefit passed by Congress in 2003. The program covers annual prescription costs up to a certain amount and costs above a higher threshold, but not those in between, leaving a hole in the middle of the coverage plan.
Pharmacy benefits manager Caremark has agreed to pay Washington nearly $1.7 million as part of a $41 million multistate settlement of claims that it encouraged doctors to switch patients' prescriptions while representing that the switch would save patients money. In some cases, the patients or their health plans ended up paying more. And sometimes patients incurred more costs when they switched, because new drug therapies required additional tests or doctor's visits, according to the state's complaint. Caremark got rebates and discounts from drug manufacturers for switching patients to different drugs and didn't clearly disclose how it would affect a patient's cost, the state alleged. Caremark denied any wrongdoing but agreed to change its business practices.