Aetna Health Inc. paid a $750,000 fine as part of a settlement with the New York Insurance Department related to the company administering an affordable healthcare plan for the state. Aetna is the administrator for the state-subsidized program Healthy NY, which assists small business owners in providing affordable health insurance to their employees. Aetna's violations included failing to provide a required 30-day notice of rate increases to about 946 members in 2007, failing to provide notice to 1,406 terminated workers of their rights to convert to another policy, failing to report enrollment data from May 2007 through August 2008, and failing to respond to Insurance Department requests for data in March 2008, the Hartford Courant reports.
For the first time, government programs next year will account for more than half of all U.S. healthcare spending, federal actuaries predict, as the weak economy sends more people into Medicaid and slows growth of private insurance. Government health programs are a growing burden on the federal budget, which is running annual deficits of more than $1 trillion. By 2020, according to the new projections, about one in five dollars spent in the U.S. will go to healthcare, a proportion far beyond any other industrialized nation, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The economic recession has forced Americans to spend 5.7% more for health services and drugs in 2009 than they spent in 2008, according to new projections in a report by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. With the healthcare tab for last year coming to $2.5 trillion, healthcare spending now represents 17.3% of the nation's gross domestic product, a 1.1% bigger portion of the nation's economy than in 2008. The increase represents the biggest one-year expansion of healthcare's share of the economy since the federal government began keeping records in 1960.
Healthcare leaders in Miami-Dade County, FL, agreed that the county dare not let the financially troubled Jackson Health System fail, but no one yet has a clear idea of how to keep it going, the Miami Herald reports. The comments came a day after Jackson executives released revised figures, forecasting that the public system will lose $229 million this fiscal year. It is losing $14 million a month. The system needs about 16 days of cash, or about $70 million, just to meet biweekly payroll for its 12,000 employees, the Herald reports.
Among states, California arguably has the most to gain from an overhaul of its healthcare system: it has the greatest number of uninsured residents in the country and the largest public insurance program for the poor, which struggles to serve 6.5 million people while reimbursing doctors at one of the nation's lowest rates, the Associated Press reports. Doctors, patients, politicians, and researchers all agree change is desperately needed, but often disagree on what that change should look like.
More than 1,000 uninsured people filled the Connecticut Convention Center for the chance to see a doctor on February 3. The National Association of Free Clinics ran the one-day clinic, and has hosted similar events around the country. The goal of the Association is to give people without health insurance medical attention and connect them to a regular source of care.