California Insurers Reject More Than Quarter of All Claims
A new study by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU) finds that California’s largest private insurance companies continue to deny more than one-fourth of all claims and two firms rejected about 40 percent of submitted claims.
CNA/NNU Co-President DeAnn McEwen says the rejection rates show one reason why:
medical bills are a prime source of personal bankruptcies as doctors and hospitals will push patients and their families to make up what the insurer denies.
For the first three quarters of 2010, seven California insurance giants rejected 13.1 million claims—26 percent of all claims submitted—a number only slightly below the 26.8 percent rate for 2009. The data, new findings by the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, the CNA/NNU research arm, is based on data from the California Department of Managed Health Care.
Health Care Giants Spent $86 Million in Effort to Kill Reform
We reported that Big Insurance funneled millions of dollars to the Chamber of Commerce to fight health care reform and millions more to try and water down the law once it was passed. Now Bloomberg Business News reporter Drew Armstrong has put a price tag on the effort to kill the bill. In an article earlier this week, Armstrong says tax records show big health insurers last year gave the Chamber $86.2 million that was used to oppose the health care overhaul law.
The Chamber is not required to disclose its donors, but unnamed sources told Bloomberg that the money came from America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), an industry trade group that represents companies like Cigna and UnitedHealth Group. AHIP’s donation accounted for 40 percent of all the money the Chamber received in 2009.
Insurers Set to End Sick Kids’ Policies
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This Thursday, Sept. 23, several key components of the health care reform law go into effect, including a ban on denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. But just this week, several large health insurers began an end-run around the law when they announced that rather than cover kids, they’ll get out of the business of selling children’s policies.
That action, says Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now (HCAN), is “immoral…appalling…and dishonest.”
We’re just days away from a new era when insurance companies must stop denying coverage to kids just because they are sick, and now some of the biggest changed their minds and decided to refuse to sell child-only coverage. The latest announcement by the insurance companies that they won’t cover kids is immoral, and to blame their appalling behavior on the new law is patently dishonest.
CIGNA Admits to Secret Funding for Anti-Health Care Reform Ads
Back in January, as the fight over health care reform was in high gear, the National Journal pinned down what most of us suspected all the time: The nation’s biggest health insurers had been funneling money—about $20 million—quietly to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to air lie-filled, scare-mongering ads about health care reform.
That revelation flew in the face of the insurance industry’s claim that it really supported health care reform, but they were just dickering over the details. While the facts about the secret funds were on the record and not disputed, the big insurers didn’t address the issue.
Big Insurance Funds Chamber of Commerce to Kill Health Care Reform
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The nation’s biggest health insurers have been funneling money quietly to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to air lie-filled, scare-mongering commercials about health care reform.
Like Capt. Renault, who discovered there was gambling going on at Rick’s Café Américain in Casablanca, we are: “Shocked, shocked….” Yeah, right.
Most observers of the health care reform fight suspected the major insurers that make up the America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) were helping to foot the bill for the latest round of ads by two “business coalitions” subsidized by the Chamber. But it wasn’t until Peter Stone at the National Journal connected the dots that we had proof.
Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director, says the report confirms
one of Washington’s worst-kept secrets—which is big insurance companies are fighting tooth and nail to kill health reform that will wrest power from their hands and give it to American families.
Today in Health Care
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Here’s the latest news from around the country as the battle for real health care reform continues:
* 45,000 people die every year from lack of access to health insurance. How much would it cost to cover those 45,000 every year, saving their lives? Here’s a hint: It’s less than the $263 million the health care industry has spent this year on lobbying.
* Today, the California Labor Federation begins a 24-hour vigil in Sacramento to let their elected leaders know that they demand health care reform now, including a public option to bring down costs for families. California union members also will hold events this week in Los Angeles, San Diego and Bakersfield.
A Robust Public Option Creates Competition
Stopping by “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC last night, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka discussed why the AFL-CIO supports health care reform legislation that makes sure Big Insurance doesn’t monopolize the health care field—and why the bill passed this week by the Senate Finance Committee, which does not include a public option, must be improved as it goes through Congress.
Right now as your last guest [Wendell Potter, former Cigna executive] said, American insurance companies have a stranglehold on the health care industry. In 90 percent of the markets, they’re called highly concentrated, or there’s one or two companies that control them. As a result, profits have gone up 1,000 percent and premiums have gone up 300 percent. The only way to hold them accountable is to create competition and the only way you can create competition is with a robust public option.
Alison Stewart, who filled in for Maddow, asked Trumka:
Let’s talk about the public option. Is it a make or break issue?
His answer:
Absolutely.
Tell Your Health Care Insurer It’s Time for Real Reform
Health insurance companies have turned to scare tactics and outright lies to fight health care reform. Seems they’re not satisfied with jacking up the cost of premiums, canceling policies when people get sick and denying treatment.
In fact, you can tell the health insurance companies you’re sick of their lies and that it’s time for real health care reform.
- Click here if a Blue Cross Blue Shield company provides your health insurance.
- Click here if UnitedHealthcare provides your health insurance.
- Click here if Aetna provides your health insurance.
- Click here if Humana provides your health insurance.
- Click here if CIGNA provides your health insurance.
- Click here if a different company provides your health insurance.
- Click here if you don’t have health insurance.
Today, Florida members of the Alliance for Retired Americans rallied in front of the West Palm Beach offices of Humana and called the scare tactics and lies ”unconscionable.”
Health Care Reform Action: Rallies, a ‘Die-In’ and a Visit from the VP
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In Hartford, Conn., union and health care activists marched on the headquarters of health insurance giant Aetna. In Minnetonka, Minn., the target was the posh headquarters of UnitedHealthcare. And in Fargo, N.D., demonstrators took a list of health care reform demands to the offices of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota.
In Philadelphia, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker led a rally and march of several hundred to CIGNA’s headquarters.
Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden today met with Alliance for Retired Americans seniors to describe how the administration’s health care plan would benefit them.
Those rallies and marches and dozens of others in cities around the country were part of a National Day of Action for health care reform and against the private health insurance companies’ multimillion-dollar campaign to block comprehensive reform that includes a quality and affordable public health insurance option.
Holt Baker: We’re Sick of Insurance Company Abuses
The new AFL-CIO leadership team’s cross-country effort to lay out a progressive vision continues in multiple states today. In Philadelphia, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker led a rally of hundreds outside the headquarters of CIGNA, a major insurer, demanding health insurance reform that puts people first, not insurance company profits. (AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is in New York, calling for tough new regulations on the financial industry.)
The rally in Philadelphia is part of a National Day of Action on health care, as well as a national push by the AFL-CIO’s newly elected officers to mobilize for an economy that works for everyone.
Holt Baker led a march from City Hall to CIGNA headquarters, saying the time had come to declare independence from the insurance giants who dominate the nation’s health care system.
