Again: Where's the money?

Aetna has just announced that it doesn't want to write any more individual health insurance plans in over a dozen states:

"We will not offer commissions for 2017 individual plans in the following states: Arkansas, Arizona, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming"

Notice that this isn't about on- or off-Exchange, it's all-inclusive (or exclusive, one supposes).

They join a non-exclusive club; co-blogger Bob tells us that Cigna won't be paying commissions on 2017 business (plans written beginning of next month for January 1 effective dates) in Illinois, California and North Carolina.

And FoIB Jeff M, reporting from North Carolina, tells us that Blue Cross won't pay commissions on business migrating to them from UHC, Aetna, or Coventry. He sagely observes that "the only way for an agent to make anything at all is to write business on someone who is currently uninsured."

That'll work out well.

Long Term Care: It's only money, right?

John Hancock, one of the largest Long Term Care insurance (LTCi) carriers, recently released its findings on which areas cost the most (and least) for actual care. The report's based on a survey of some 16,000 providers across the US of A to come up with community averages.

Here's a sampling of what they found:

1. Nursing home: Private room

Cheapest: Jefferson City, Missouri ($142 per day)

Most expensive: Juneau, Alaska ($600 per day)

4. Home health aide

Cheapest: Fort Lauderdale, Florida ($15 per hour)

Most expensive: Minneapolis ($31 per hour)

5. Adult day care

Cheapest: Montgomery, Alabama ($22 per day)

Most expensive: New York ($203 per day)

Be sure to click through to see the other key data points, including assisted living and shared room costs.

The lesson? Long term care's expensive, no matter how you slice it. Might be a good idea to shift some of that risk off to an insurance company.

Health Wonk Review is up...

Joe Paduda presents this week's star-studded, jam-packed Health Wonk Review, with a focus on the upcoming election.

Believe me, you don't want to miss it.

ATTENTION OBAMACARE SUPPORTERS: FOR PROFIT INSURERS ARE NOW GOOD!

Evergreen Health, one of six remaining Obamacare not-for-profit co-ops, announced this week that it is being acquired by a group of private equity investors. This move will make the insurer a FOR-PROFIT entity.

Under Obamacare, co-ops were given the opportunity to receive low interest loans. Evergreen received $65,000,000 to start up. In signing their contract it explicitly stated that all co-ops were prohibited from either being acquired by or converting to for-profit entities. That all changed in May when CMS issued new regulations allowing acquisitions and conversions to for-profit status.

In order for the acquisition to take effect the Maryland Insurance Administration and CMS must approve the deal. Which puts the Obama administration in a tough spot. Even if the loan repayment continues, how does CMS approve a deal where taxpayer funds with ultra low interest were used to start up the venture? On the other hand, if they don't approve the deal 38,000 people will lose their insurance.

One last thing that should be most important to CMS and members: who is the buyer and what was the purchase price? Neither of which were disclosed.

Hurricane Matthew News

Courtesy of the Insurance Information Institute:

[click embiggen pic]

Thursday Morning LinkFest

■ First up, co-blogger Bob tips us to this helpful state-by-state look at O'Care's individual marketplaces. Of note:

"[O]ne-third of all U.S. counties will only have one insurer offering plans on Affordable Care Act exchanges in 2017, leaving an estimated 2.3 million ACA marketplace enrollees in uncompetitive markets"

If you like your plan...

■ FoIB Holly R has a pair of North Star State items:

"Minnesota Hiking Obamacare Premiums At Least 50% To Avoid ‘Collapse’"

Methinks they've misspelled "3000% rate decrease." On the other hand:

"Minnesota health insurance market in 'emergency situation'"

So they've got that going for them.

Which is (Minnesota) nice.

■ Finally, FoIB Jeff M tips us to this article on how "[s]elf-funding employee health care pays off for some small businesses." We've touted these plans for a while (here, for instance): for some smaller groups there are tremendous savings available.

Yahoo, Data Breaches, and You

This seems significant:


"The account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority with bcrypt) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers"

Did that include your private info? And if it did, what can you do about it?

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