Aetna Inc has decided not to reinstate or extend individual health insurance plans that are being canceled with the advent of the U.S. Affordable Care Act because the time frame is too short. Aetna is the largest insurer yet to announce a decision on how it would proceed across the United States after President Barack Obama said last month that insurers could extend these health plans under a temporary transitional policy. Aetna's move means that some consumers, who are required to have health insurance in 2014 or pay a fine, will need to buy a new plan for 2014. Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini made the comments at an investor meeting on Thursday.
The slow rollout of a new federal health insurance marketplace may be deepening differences in health coverage among Americans, with residents in some states gaining insurance at a far greater rate than others. The demarcation may be as simple as Democrat and Republican. Newly released federal figures show more people are picking private insurance plans or being routed to Medicaid programs in states with Democratic leaders who have fully embraced the federal health care law than in states where Republican elected officials have derisively rejected what they call "Obamacare." On one side of the political divide are a dozen mostly Democratic leaning states, including California, Minnesota and New York.
A federal appeals court on Thursday refused to issue an interim stay in the UnitedHealthcare case and has referred the matter to a three-judge panel. The case focuses on a plan by the nation's largest health insurer to cut thousands of Connecticut doctors from its Medicare Advantage network on Feb. 1. On Dec. 5, a U.S. District judge in Bridgeport issued a preliminary injunction that halted the cuts for members of two doctor associations that took UnitedHealthcare to court. The insurer appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York and asked for an "emergency" stay of the lower-court order — and an "interim" stay until that request is decided.
At the moment, the political parties seem to disagree on almost everything healthcare-related. There's one major piece of health policy, though, on which they do agree: Both want to change how Medicare, the country's largest insurer, pays doctors. Lawmakers as conservative as Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch and as liberal as Michigan Democrat Rep. Sandy Levin are meeting to consider a proposal that would change the way physicians get paid. Rather than the current system, which pays doctors for every test or procedure they do, the new method would pay physicians based on whether they help patients get or stay healthy.
Spending on doctors, drugs and other medical care in Minnesota grew a tiny 2 percent from 2010 to 2011, capping a three-year period that marked the slowest growth since the state started keeping track in the mid-1990s. The slowdown was so dramatic that it leaves the state in a position to pay back $50 million spent on money-saving health care reforms it created in 2008 — reforms that appear to have helped contain medical outlays. Minnesotans, along with their public and private insurers, spent $38.2 billion on health care in 2011 — well below the spending projection of $40.5 billion, according to an annual report released Thursday by the state Department of Health.
With just a few weeks left before a deadline to get health coverage, lingering bugs lurk in the part of HealthCare.gov that you can't see. And since time is running out to get things right, health officials on Thursday urged insurance companies to cover some enrollees even if their premium checks haven't come in. Under the law's guidelines, consumers have to sign up for a health insurance exchange — and pay their first month's premium — by the end of December if they want coverage in January. "The short time period presents a number of challenges," says Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group.