Hartford, CT-based Aetna Inc.'s fourth-quarter earnings fell 15%, despite prior-year investment losses, as the health insurer continued to feel the effects of inadequate pricing that battered its underwriting margins. Aetna also projected a decline in 2010 earnings. The outlook follows a 2009 in which Aetna's medical costs outpaced premium increases, and the health insurance industry felt pressures from the broad economic downturn, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Illinois Supreme Court struck down the state's medical malpractice law, saying it violates separation of powers by allowing lawmakers to interfere with a judge's ability to reduce verdicts, the Chicago Tribune reports. The ruling, which challenged the constitutionality of damage caps for doctors and hospitals, is being watched by the healthcare industry and employers that see caps on damages as a way to tame rising healthcare costs. The ruling could also figure in the national healthcare debate, the Tribune reports.
A large hospital network that had offered to take over the nearly bankrupt St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan has formally withdrawn its offer, the New York Times reports. Stan Brezenoff, president of Continuum Health Partners, a consortium of five hospitals in New York City, said in a letter to Henry J. Amoroso, the president and chief executive of St. Vincent's, that he was withdrawing the offer because of what he said had been a negative reaction to it from both the State Health Department and St. Vincent's own board.
Anthem Blue Cross, California's largest for-profit health insurer, is moving to dramatically raise rates for customers with individual policies, the Los Angeles Times reports. Anthem is telling many of its approximately 800,000 customers who buy individual coverage that its prices will go up March 1 and may be adjusted "more frequently" than its typical yearly increases. The insurer declined to say how high it is increasing rates, but brokers who sell these policies say they are fielding numerous calls from customers incensed over premium increases of 30% to 39%, reports the Times.
The Washington state Health Care Authority said it plans to ask private insurers to help it create a coverage option that anyone in the state could buy for about $100 a month. The agency will issue a request for proposals to the insurers asking how much they would charge for a benefit package outlined by the agency. Based on the bids, the agency would determine what premium insurers may charge for the package. Insurers who figure the premium would not cover their claims and administrative expenses could choose not to participate, the Puget Sound Business Journal reports.
Driven by growth in insurance services, outpatient medical care, and physician services, operating income rose 13%, or $130 million, for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for the six-month period ending December 31, the hospital network announced. During the same period, operating revenue rose $216 million to $4.062 billion for a 5.6% increase, while the operating margin for UPMC improved to 3.2% from 3%.