Insurance
Mandate for easy-to-read health insurance policies dumped
Anyone who has suffered through reading an insurance policy might welcome the idea of listing all of the exclusions and limitations – basically what’s not covered – in one section. It might even spare them from the ordeal of reading the policy in the first place. The summary was among the requirements of a pending state regulation to make insurance policies easier to understand. This seemingly innocuous – perhaps quixotic – goal has merited an emergency rule by Ted Nickel, the new insurance commissioner. (MIILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 5/9)
Insurance policy readability may not get better
Call it a triumph of industry over bureaucracy or a defeat for consumer rights. Either way, hopefully you can understand it. Wisconsin’s new insurance commissioner wants to end a rule that required health insurers to make their policies more understandable. (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 4/25)
Dean Health Insurance makes J.D. Power list
Dean Health Plan has received the highest satisfaction rating from its members, according to a J.D. Power and Associates survey of nine health insurance plans in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Dean received the maximum five stars in all of the categories: coverage, provider choice, information and overall experience. (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 3/23)
More districts now could dump union's insurance arm
In freeing school boards from bargaining with employees over anything but inflation-capped wage increases, Wisconsin lawmakers might have opened the floodgates for districts seeking to drop coverage by the state’s dominant – and highly controversial – health insurance provider for teachers. WEA Trust, the nonprofit company started 40 years ago by the state’s largest teachers union, currently insures employees in about two-thirds of Wisconsin school districts. The company’s market dominance has dropped in recent years, although not as much as some school officials who complain about the company’s costs would like. (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 3/14)
GOP bills to allow "a la carte" health insurance policies to ignore state mandates
Republican lawmakers are working on a pair of bills that would allow insurance policies in Wisconsin to ignore state mandates requiring coverage for a broad variety of medical treatments and conditions, including autism, cochlear implants and mental health problems. One of the new GOP bills permits insurers to offer a menu of “a la carte” individual policies that does not include coverage required by state mandates, which currently affect more than a dozen different conditions and procedures, from mammograms, kidney disease, and breast reconstruction to contraceptives, child immunizations and diabetes. The other bill would permit out-of-state health insurers to sell plans here that do not comply with state mandates at all. (CAPITAL TIMES, 3/8)
UnitedHealth loses bid for military work
UnitedHealth Group Inc. has lost a $23.5 billion military contract that it was awarded nearly two years ago but never started administering. Instead, Humana Military Healthcare Services Inc. was awarded the five-year TRICARE contract to administer health benefits to U.S. soldiers and their families in the South. Both are major providers of health insurance in Wisconsin. (MILWAUKEE BUSINESS JOURNAL, 3/2)
Molina sees shares surge
It’s not a bad time to be a Medicaid plan provider as the new health care law will increase the number of people in the program. Molina Healthcare Inc. has seen its shares surge since recently issuing optimistic revenue forecasts for fiscal 2011 and 2012. Molina Healthcare provides Medicaid-related plans to low-income families and individuals in California, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin. Currently, it services about 1.6 million members. (ZACKS, 2/1)
Health benefit actually could cost you
If you have an adult child under age 27, federal law lets you include that child in your health insurance coverage, as of March 30, 2010. But doing so could increase your state income tax burden. That’s because the Wisconsin Legislature has not adopted the federal change — at least not yet — so it’s considered a taxable benefit. (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 1/31)
Sprecher named CEO of Dean Health Plan, Palmer takes over full-time at Navitus Health Solutions
Dean Health Plan announced former state budget director Lon Sprecher as its new chief executive officer. Sprecher takes over from Robert Palmer, who will become the full-time CEO at Madison-based Navitus Health Solutions LLC, a pharmacy benefit management company he helped create and is owned by Dean. (WHN, 1/27)
Madison schools' ‘Cadillac' health insurance a myth
There’s always lots of talk about how Madison area teachers enjoy gold-plated health insurance plans, courtesy of the taxpayers. But a recently released report from the Wisconsin Association of School Boards should go a long ways towards dispelling that myth, according to the Capital Times. (CAPITAL TIMES, 1/24)
© 2012 Wisconsin Health News. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by WordPress. Designed by 