The growing trend of high-deductible health plans for employee health coverage could be a troubling sign that the quality of coverage through employers is declining.

The days of 100% health insurance coverage by employers are long gone. Employees all over the nation contribute nearly 20% to their employer-sponsored health care packages. For those employees who currently complain about the amount of their health care contributions, brace yourselves. Your employer may be looking to grab a higher-deductible health insurance option as a means for them to save a few dollars in a still-struggling economy.

A little high-deductible health plan history

Higher deductibles aren’t a new thing. Since 2003, high-deductible health plans have been working their way into the health care industry. Most have an average deductible rate of $1,200.00 for individuals and $2,400.00 for a family plan. The logic behind the high deductible is that it is supposed to serve as an incentive for people to make wiser choices for their individual health needs, and not run to the emergency room for every little ache of pain. For employers, the higher deductible rates mean lower premium costs, and this reasoning is catching on.

(more…)

Is there a difference between choosing a primary care provider (family physician) and a specialist to treat you?

Primary care is struggling. Doctors in this field aren’t getting paid from organizations like Medicare and other government-funded entities. And even though many people who have HMO coverage are required to have a primary care physicians, the same HMOs skimp on payouts to the same physicians in their network. No doubt, as a result, patient care is suffering. We can complain and moan all day about underfunding for primary care, but that won’t address the real issue here: Where is that money supposed to come from?

With our economy in the state it is currently in, we can rest assured that additional funds are going to appear out of thin air (or out of other countries’ pockets) to help us solve our health care issues, but wouldn’t it be nice if everything else could stay well funded (though thinking so is laughable), while enough money went to primary care?

One can dream. The Wall Street Journal Health Blog took an informal survey from readers, asking where they thought that extra money for primary care should come from. The most popular answer was this: Lowering reimbursements for care and procedures provided by specialists. Is this a feasible solution? What would Congress do? Are we all just going to have to keep hoping the health care system in this country is going to magically remedy itself? (more…)

Health Reform was a big topic this year.  After all, President Barack Obama stood in front of congress more than once to encourage bipartisan support for the measures.  In the end, the country was deeply divided in their opinions about the bill’s veracity, but few can deny that Health Reform – as described in HR 3590 - will have far-reaching effects for millions of Americans (for better or worse).

This list of the 10 Most Costly Conditions was taken from our consumer guide to Health Reform in 2010.

Among the extensive coverage of health reform (Google shows an astounding 4,100,000 results for the phrase “health reform bill”) there is very little in the way of consumer guides.  MedHealthInsurance.com sought to remedy that shortfall by publishing a consumer guide to health reform in conjunction with the Insurance Research Organization.  We hope this guide will help you better understand your options under the new bill, its timeline, and how it will affect you – no matter which walk of life you hail from.

Doctors are regular people, just like the rest of us. They put their pants on one leg at a time, and they go through the same thought processes that we all do. They have good and bad days, and sometimes, they wish they could just open their mouths and let their patients know what they really think about health, lifestyle choices and your incessant whining. Reader’s Digest compiled a comprehensive, telling and hilarious list of quotes from the likes of general practitioners, surgeons, shrinks, pediatricians, and other specialists, and their honesty and bluntness is refreshing. You may see your patient self reflected in some of the following accounts, but don’t feel bad. Now you know what your doctor is probably thinking and you can use what follows as a tool to create a better doctor/patient relationship.

Doctors Say: Impatience is Our Virtue

Although a doctor is supposed to be endlessly patient, listening as we prattle on about our list of suspected ailments, what they are doing inside is mentally tapping their foot and rolling their eyes. Some secrets doctors around the country shared:

(more…)

The Geography of the Congressional Health Care Bill

With a narrow 219 to 212 margin of victory, the landmark health care reform bill (known as the “Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act”) passed Sunday night. President Obama – along with Vice President Joe Biden – watched the final tally of votes from the White House. Responding, the President said: “We pushed back on the undue influence of special interests. We didn’t give in to mistrust or to cynicism or to fear. Instead, we proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things.”

HR4872 was a revised form of the health care bill passed by Congress on Christmas Eve. It was meant to reconcile some of the reservations that the Senate had with many of the original bill’s provisions. Unfortunately, between Christmas Eve and the vote on Sunday, a spectre of controversy has arisen over the bill, and ultimately, 34 Democrats stood with Republicans to oppose the bill. Representative John Boehner, Republican from Ohio, pledged to vehemently fight the bill: “The American people are angry. This body moves forward against their will. Shame on us,” said Boehner.  Chances are high, however, that the bill will pass the Senate with a simple majority of 51 votes.

(more…)

A look at the per capita health costs - U.S. compared to other OECD nations in 2000. Of course, since the year 2000 these costs have ballooned even further.

A poignant article in the respected journal, Health Affairs, put it best when it said that “a cycle of unsustainable spending growth followed by fervent cost containment initiatives has been a regular feature of the health care landscape for the past half-century.” As a result, the journal looked at health care spending per capita for thirty countries in the so-called “industrialized” Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) list of countries, all while record numbers of Americans choose to opt out of individual health insurance plans.

In 2002, U.S. citizens spent more than $5,260 per capita for their health care. This represented a 53% premium over any other country in the OECD list. That trend continues to this day, and it is a major catalytic factor in the health care reform movement championed by the Obama administration.

Health Affairs concludes that the two main factors in the high U.S. health care costs are:

• Defensive medicine (which leads to higher diagnostic rates and a hyper-sensitive population of doctors due to the fear of medical malpractice claims), and
• The high rates of emergency care resources vs other industrialized nations. Of course, the article in the journal tends not to oversimplify and cites numerous other potential reasons.

Whatever the case, health care spending has ballooned far beyond that of any other country (as the graph above illustrates). Where the proposed reform will take us from here is anybody’s best guess.