WellPoint Inc., which operates in Illinois as UniCare, said it will exit Illinois and Texas, where it has about 400,000 members, in an effort to focus on its other U.S. operations. WellPoint said the subsidiary is profitable, but "there are competitive pressures in Illinois and Texas that have made it increasingly difficult for UniCare to offer quality products that are competitively priced." WellPoint said its Illinois UniCare customers would be guaranteed coverage if they transition to Health Care Service Corp., parent of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois.
Employers are blasting the Senate's plan to create a new public health-insurance program, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Business Roundtable, an association of company executives, is calling and visiting lawmakers to persuade them not to include the public plan in the legislation. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce began airing cable-television advertisements in seven states arguing that the public option will lead to higher taxes and increase the national debt.
In a bid to cut healthcare costs, International Business Machines Corp. plans to stop requiring $20 co-payments by employees when they visit primary-care physicians. The company said it believed the move would save costs by encouraging people to go to primary-care doctors faster, in order to get earlier diagnoses that could save on expensive visits to specialists and emergency rooms. One of the nation's largest employers with 115,000 U.S. workers, IBM spends about $1.3 billion a year on U.S. healthcare.
The push by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for a public health-insurance option is creating new obstacles for healthcare legislation in the Senate, despite new poll data suggesting a plurality of Americans support the idea. Connecticut independent Sen. Joe Lieberman said that he would vote to block passage of the Senate healthcare bill in its current form, dealing an initial blow to Reid's effort to gather 60 votes. But a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll suggested the public option is gaining support: 48% of respondents supported the idea; 42% were opposed, and 10% weren't sure. In a September poll, 46% of respondents supported it, 48% opposed it and 6% were undecided.
New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo announced the details of a new national database that would help determine how much insurance companies should reimburse patients who go out of network to see a doctor. Consumers would also be able to check a new Web site to see what an insurer was likely to pay before they went to an out-of-network doctor. The announcement is part of a settlement reached with more than a dozen insurance companies concerning the industry's controversial payment of out-of-network claims.
Naples, FL-based hospital company Health Management Associates Inc. reported net income of $25.4 million, or 10 cents a share, for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with net income of $10.8 million, or 4 cents a share, in the same quarter a year ago. Revenue for the three months ended Sept. 30 was $1.12 billion, up 5.8% from revenue of 1.06 billion a year earlier. HMA owns and operates 56 hospitals throughout the United States.