Subsidizing claims of more than $15,000 a year for certain chronic diseases and requiring insurance companies to cover those claims is a centerpiece of a health-care reform bill introduced by Ohio Rep. Jim Raussen, R-Springdale, chairman of the House's Health Care Access and Affordability committee. The bill would also subsidize coverage for small companies, make it easier for children to be covered on their parents' policy and provide incentives for doctors and hospitals to computerize records. The proposals could cost $150 million to $500 million over the next six years.
Aetna is making a highly visible show of its support for the annual American Heart Association's Go Red For Women movement by lighting the cupola of its national headquarters red for the month of February. The company, headquartered in Hartford, CT is also supporting Go Red For Women luncheon events in California and Michigan, and encouraging employees nationally to wear red on Friday, February 1, which is "National Wear Red Day."
The failure of an ambitious plan to overhaul healthcare in California has illustrated the difficulty of sweeping reform and puts renewed focus on the presidential race, where healthcare has become a top domestic concern. Presidential candidates are proposing a raft of ways to solve a daunting social challenge, and their plans largely center on reining in costs and expanding coverage to the country's 47 million uninsured residents.
A day after the California Senate killed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to expand healthcare coverage to residents, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner vowed to make sure that current insurance laws were strictly enforced and ordered new audits of the state's largest health insurers. The goals is to make sure the insurers cover members' medical needs and pay physicians and hospitals what they owe them--and on time.
The defeat of the $14.9 billion bill backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez is a setback for state initiatives, but doesn't necessarily damp prospects for national reform. That is because California's enormous uninsured population and shaky fiscal health made it a poor prospect for change. But the demise of California's proposed healthcare restructuring underscores a difficulty states face in achieving universal insurance coverage: their inability to slow the upward trajectory of healthcare costs, analysts said.
A new poll has found that 77 percent of small business owners do not offer health insurance to their employees. Discover Business Card's survey also found that 39 percent of small business owners said the cost of healthcare has a major impact on their ability to grow. In addition, more than half of respondents said obtaining affordable health insurance for employees was very difficult.