Individuals buying health insurance on their own will see their premiums tumble next year in New York State as changes under the federal health care law take effect, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Wednesday. State insurance regulators say they have approved rates for 2014 that are at least 50 percent lower on average than those currently available in New York. Beginning in October, individuals in New York City who now pay $1,000 a month or more for coverage will be able to shop for health insurance for as little as $308 monthly. With federal subsidies, the cost will be even lower.
Nearly all stories about the health-care overhaul and insurance premiums tend to be about the cost of health insurance rising. That's what makes this front page story in the New York Times all the more unexpected: "Health Plan Cost For New Yorkers Set to Fall 50 Percent." A headline about the health care law driving down premiums, by this level of magnitude, is a rarity. But it shouldn't be shocking: New York has, for two decades now, had the highest individual market premiums in the country. A lot of it seems to trace back to a law passed in 1993, which required insurance plans to accept all applicants, regardless of how sick or healthy they were.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A Charlotte attorney has sued Carolinas HealthCare System, saying it has violated the state public records law. Charlotte attorney Gary Jackson has accused the operator of Carolinas Medical Center and more than 30 other hospitals of keeping secret the terms of a legal settlement, The Charlotte Observer reported. Carolinas HealthCare won a confidential settlement in a complaint it filed against the former Wachovia Bank. The settlement followed a 2008 lawsuit in which Carolinas HealthCare accused the bank of breaking a promise to put the hospital system's money in low-risk investments.
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Officials have approved health insurance rates for 17 insurers planning to offer coverage next year through New York's new Health Benefit Exchange, part of the federal overhaul expected to bring coverage to 1.1 million uninsured statewide. Under the federal mandate intended to expand coverage nationally, people getting insurance through the exchange and who meet certain income thresholds can tap into an estimated $2.6 billion in federal tax credits and subsidies annually in New York. The state Department of Financial Services, which approved the rates, said Wednesday that the list includes eight providers that don't currently offer commercial health insurance plans.
Star wars may be coming to a hospital near you. Medicare is considering assigning stars or some other easily understood symbol to hospitals so patients can more easily compare the quality of care at various institutions. The ratings would appear on Medicare's Hospital Compare website and be based on many of the 100 quality measures the agency already publishes. The proposal comes as Medicare confronts a paradox: Although the number of ways to measure hospital performance is increasing, those factors are becoming harder for patients to digest. Hospital Compare publishes a wide variety of details about medical centers, including death rates, patient views about how well doctors communicated, infection rates for colon surgery and hysterectomies, emergency room efficiency and overuse of CT scans.
Denver Health Medical Center will cut about 300 jobs to reduce its personnel expenses by $18 million within 12 months. Hospital officials, dealing with a deficit that reached $1 million this spring, said the job cuts will come through a combination of layoffs, attrition and a reduction in new hires across all departments. The hospital's total employment will contract by about 5 percent, to 5,400 people. Denver Health's budget, hundreds of millions of dollars, is suffering from a combination of factors including the sequester — the automatic federal trims that took effect this spring after Congress couldn't agree on a budget fix — and the lack of a profitable group or chain to financially back the hospital.