Health Insurance News

From USA Today:

The article begins by talking about Jeff Kushner being ready to start a new company to help families fight "cybercrime."

But Kushner, recently laid off from a tech job, is such a reluctant entrepreneur that he's only committing to self-employment for six months while he continues job hunting. Why? It's going to cost him $1,145 a month for health insurance for himself, his wife and two kids.

It goes on to say that because of the costs of proper health insurand for the self employed, many people are opting to work for large companies, which some people believe stifles growth and innovation.

That's worrisome because start-ups and other small firms have historically created most innovations and as much as 75% of new jobs. In Cincinnati, for example, health costs have slowed Wendy Hunt and her husband, Brian Germ, from starting a dog day care business that would employ up to 10 workers. That may not sound like much. But multiplied across thousands of start-ups, these new jobs would replace many lost when mature companies such as Eastman Kodak and Hewlett-Packard are slashing payrolls.

Princeton economist Harvey Rosen and other researchers reached the opposite conclusion, however. They did not find a link when they examined the matter more than a decade ago. Their 1994 research noted that entrepreneurs by definition are risk takers. Many are willing to fly without a health safety net, they said.

Medicare Supplement Insurance News

This site is dedicated to keeping Senior Citizens up to date on Medicare and Medicare Supplement Insurance news. It is fairly new, but there are already several very informative articles about the new medicare prescription drug benefit. If changes to medicare have an effect on you or your family, I would highly recommend reading this blog.

From Newsday:

The researchers found that the children with intermittent coverage were more likely to postpone medical care than uninsured kids. For example, 20 percent of children who were uninsured for part of the year delayed getting medical attention because parents worried about cost compared to 16 percent without insurance and 4 percent with public and private coverage.

According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, a handful of Atlanta executives and politicians are lobbying for legislation to allow small businesses in different states to pool together to save money on health insurance.

Health Insurance is legislated on a state level, so creating a federal program to form "association health plans" poses some challenges.

"If they're exempt from state regulation, there is no way on God's green earth that the federal government can check these organizations for solvency, and that's one of the main functions of state insurance departments," said Kirkland McGhee, executive director of the Georgia Association of Health Plans. "Multiple Employer Welfare Arrangements in the 1980s were like that and they stole money from people ... and companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield and Aetna had to pick up the mess that those people left. I'm afraid AHPs are like the second coming of that."

Insurance industry experts also believe that AHPs may lead to adverse selection for the existing insurance companies.

Charlie Harman, spokesperson for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia Inc., said it would upset the balance of healthy and unhealthy that a typical insurance company covers. "More healthy people who may not see themselves going to the hospitals and needing the state-mandated benefits will select the [associated health plans] and Blue Cross Blue Shield will be left with the less healthy people, who will have higher claims and higher costs," Harman said.