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Re “Health Benefits Inspire a Rush to the Altar, or to Divorce Court” (front page, Aug. 13): The grotesque reality of my life has been constant constraint by the need for health insurance. With a congenital heart condition and a degenerative eye condition, I married my wife while in graduate school because I was no longer eligible for my parents’ group plan, and at the time few graduate programs offered grouphealth.
My career choices were dictated by the knowledge that I needed group health: the tenuous life of an academic in a tough job market seemed too risky, so I switched to law school. I avoided private-sector legal jobs upon discovering that many firms do not provide group insurance but expect individual lawyers to find individualhealth plans, so I ended up working for the state.
Fortunately, things have worked out for me so far. It was not desperate need, such as you described, but a sense of obligation and responsibility that drove me to make major life decisions based onhealth insurance needs (I do not have family who could foot the bill for open-heart surgery). But only in America are people with pre-existing medical conditions forced to plan every aspect of their lives around the need for grouphealth insurance. I have often toyed with the thought of emigrating to Canada or Britain simply to escape the constant, gnawing, lifelong fear of what might happen should my grouphealth for any reason ever lapse.
news source : http://www.nytimes.com/
Infomercial king Billy Mays, known for screaming about the wonders of cleaning solutions Kaboom!, OxiClean, and other household products, is now starring in a commercial for what he calls "the most important product I've ever endorsed:" health insurance. The bearded salesman started pitching iCan Benefit Group's "health insurance that you can actually afford" in May 2008, pointing to the need for its health plans given that 47 million Americans are uninsured. In the commercial, Mays says iCan's plans include guaranteed acceptance, starting as low as $160 per month for individuals and $260 for families, and can allow you to lower your monthly premium, increase coverage, or both. Concludes Mays: "You can't afford not to make this call."
His pitch shows how difficult it has become for many hard-pressed Americans to afford basic necessities, such as health care, as the cost of food, gasoline, and many adjustable-rate mortgage payments climb, while wages barely budge and employers cut jobs. To protect your assets, it's important that yourinsurance policies give you enough coverage in case something horrible happens to you or a loved one. Mays is understandably "passionate about health care." We all need health insurance, yet many Americans can't afford it, while the cost of the plans and of medical care keeps rising. Mays is pitching iCan's Mini Medical, a type of limited healthinsurance for those who can't afford major medical insurance or have been turned down because of preexisting health conditions.
Low Premiums Mean High Risk
These limited plans are not for everyone, and they could end up costing more if you need expensive care. "The problem is they're advertising these unbelievably low premium healthinsurance plans," says Mark Kenison, a financial adviser who specializes in insurance at Turning Point Benefits Group in Charlotte, N.C. "All you're doing its transferring risk to yourself so your monthly premiums are lower."
Consumers might focus on the low monthly price and not examine the cost and coverage of each health service, Kenison says. Beware of policies that don't set a maximum amount that you'd be responsible for paying for a health service, he advises. For example, iCan's mini-medical plan will probably not provide enough coverage if you get badly injured or need surgery. Looking at an example of the company's lowest-cost offering, iCan's mini-medical plan costs an individual $160 per month in North Carolina—plus an additional, $100 one-time enrollment fee—and covers a maximum of just $1,000 for surgery per year, with anesthesia limited to $250 per surgery. If you're hospitalized, the plan would cover only $200 for the first day and $100 each additional day, with a maximum of $1,100 for up to 10 days. On average, hospital care is estimated to cost $1,931 a person per year, according to the latest figures (2004) from the U.S. government's Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The low maximum benefits—and the prospect of huge additional out-of-pocket expenditures—bothers some financial pros. "It just feels wrong," says Kenison, adding that most people would be better off getting a major medical plan that limits their risk to a certain dollar amount. If you end up with a large medical bill, members of iCan's health plans have a health advocate to negotiate pricing and hospital charges, says Harold Shatz, managing member of iCan Benefit Group in Boca Raton, Fla. A $40,000 to $50,000 medical bill can be reduced to $10,000 to $12,000 through network pricing and use of a health advocate to examine the bills and find errors, he says.
news source : http://www.businessweek.com/
MANAMA: Life Insurance Corporation (International) yesterday celebrated 20 years of operating out of Bahrain with the launch of a unit linked insurance plan called Fortune Builder. The product, which offers three separate funds, will offer investors the opportunity to take advantage of opportunities in the capital markets of India or across global equities.
Life Insurance Corporation (International) chief executive officer Roy Chowdhury said the new product was flexible, catered to all life requirements and offered a wealth generation tool that simultaneously provided life insurance protection. The product is being marketed across the GCC and the company has forged a strategic alliance with Doha Bank to market the product.
LIC has more than 80,000 customers in the region and investment income of $450 million. It is part of LIC of India which has issued more than 220m policies and has a financial base of $175 billion and is the biggest life office in India.
news source : http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/
The amended JV agreement gave Max India the right to increase its shareholding in Max New York Life by up to 24% of the issued and paid up capital Max India has restructured its joint venture (JV) arrangements with New York Life International LLC by executing an amended agreement on July 15. The JV, Max New York LifeInsurance Co. accounts for about 80% of Max India's consolidated revenue.
Max India has amended the existing JV agreement dated November 3, 1999, in respect of Max New York life insurance. The original JV agreement has been replaced and substituted by the amended JV pact. The amended JV agreement gave Max India the right to increase its shareholding in Max New York Life by up to 24% of the issued and paid up capital. It has raised its stake in Max New York Life from 50% to 74%. New York Life International had the option of increasing its shareholding in the JV to 50% at par value. However, under the fresh JV agreement, Max India has repaid the Rs1.74bn deposit paid by New York Life International and increased its stake to 74%.
The US partner will now have to buy the additional 24% shareholding at 90% of fair market value. New York Life International will get a 10% discount for being a promoter-shareholder. This option will be valid till 2016. The company has posted a net profit of Rs136.1mn for the quarter ended June as against Rs38.1mn in the same quarter a year earlier. Net sales for the reporting quarter are Rs915.2mn versus Rs482.6mn in the year-ago period. At 12:46 pm, Max India was trading at Rs168.60, up Rs13.5 or 8.7% over the previous close. Earlier, the stock touched an intra-day high of Rs172 and a low of Rs160. It is down nearly 6% in the last one month.
news source : http://www.indiainfoline.com/
Accounting errors related to the billing of medical claims for the now disbanded Columbiana County Schools Health Care Benefits Consortium resulted in already settled findings for recovery in an audit released Thursday.
The audit report issued by Auditor of State Mary Taylor showed that the Salem City school district reimbursed the Columbiana County Educational Service Center for $14,925 on April 8 this year and the Southern Local school district reimbursed the United Local school district for $11,576 on March 6 this year, both related to erroneous charges or credits by the health insurance consortium. The consortium provided health insurance coverage to several area school districts.
According to the audit, a credit of $14,925 was issued to Salem's medical claims account to correct a misclassified prescription drug claim posted to medical claims on March 31, 2004. The credit should have been posted to the medical claims account for the ESC because that's where the original invoice was posted, the report said. Salem city schools Treasurer Jill Rowe said she received an e-mail from the fiscal administrator for the consortium, East Palestine schools treasurer Rick Ellis, regarding the accounting error and the need to reimburse the ESC. It was her understanding that "it was just an accounting error," she said when contacted Thursday.
The other finding for recovery stemmed from apparent posting errors made on Aug. 5, 2005 when invoices for medical claims were charged to the wrong school districts. The audit noted an invoice for $41,294 for medical claims for Southern Local schools was mistakenly charged to United Local schools and an invoice for $29,717 for United Local medical claims was mistakenly charged to Southern Local schools. The report said the Southern Local schools owed the difference of $11,576 to the United school district. Emily Frazee, deputy press secretary for the state Auditor's Office, also said the findings from the audit covering July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2007 will be forwarded to the county prosecutor's office and the Ohio Attorney General. She acknowledged that the issues looked like accounting errors and everybody had made good on the findings.
news source : http://www.salemnews.net/
Health Insurance premiums throughout the Southwest, including Texas, are expected to increase by 7.3 percent in 2009, according to preliminary information released by Hewitt Associates Inc. Still, this is the lowest rate increase in the region in four years. Health maintenance organization (HMO) premiums for the Southwest region increased 13.7 percent on average last year.
Nationwide, HMO rates are expected to increase 11.8 percent -- lower than last year's initial rate increases of 13.2 percent but still on track to outpace inflation.
Officials with Hewitt expect employers in the Southwest will be able to reduce overall rate increases next year by two or three percentage points through aggressive negotiations, changes in plan offerings and designs and an increased focus on employee health and productivity.
As the economy continues to weaken, Hewitt expects to see more companies move away from traditional employer strategies, such as cost shifting toward more aggressive and innovative steps to mitigate health care costs. Among these trends is an increasing focus on improving employee health and moving to self-insured plans.
news source : http://www.bizjournals.com/
Good for Florida labor and civic groups that began a campaign Tuesday in Tallahassee to put universal health care on the radar screen in the presidential and congressional races. With 3.8 million Floridians having no health coverage, the nation's third-highest rate of uninsured, it's a crisis that's rightly a top issue with Sunshine State voters -- and should be for candidates too.
That includes state lawmakers who have the responsibility to scrutinize Florida's newly created low-cost no-frills health insurance program, touted by Gov. Charlie Crist as a way to open the door to affordable medical care. The program is supposed to cost about $150 a month and be available for anyone has been without insurance for at least six months.
Last week the governor started soliciting bids from insurers interested in offering the bargain-rate plans, but details remain uncertain. Depending on what deals the state cuts -- such as caps set on care, what's not covered, and how high deductibles and co-pays can go -- the cheap policies could be little more than window dressing. Insurers shouldn't be allowed to rip the guts out of coverage with extremely limited benefits that deny seriously ill patients the treatment they need. And, at best, the no-frills plans should serve merely as a step toward universal, comprehensive coverage for all hardworking families -- similar to that Florida lawmakers get at taxpayers' expense.
news source : http://www.floridatoday.com/
Re “Health Benefits Inspire a Rush to the Altar, or to Divorce Court” (front page, Aug. 13): The grotesque reality of my life has been constant constraint by the need for health insurance. With a congenital heart condition and a degenerative eye condition, I married my wife while in graduate school because I was no longer eligible for my parents’ group plan, and at the time few graduate programs offered grouphealth.
