At this year’s Health 2.0 event, Mark Bertolini, the CEO of Aetna, gave a very positive outlook for the future of health insurance in his company as a result of the current and upcoming changes to the healthcare system in the United States. The reason is that the insurer has reinvented itself by providing a unique healthtech startup company exit opportunity after having made more than $1.5 billion in acquisitions in 2011. Those acquired companies are playing an important role in assisting healthcare organizations to make their first steps into…
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Health insurance may face obsolescence at the hands of accountable care organizations
As the insurance news concerning the health industry begins to change, many are beginning to question how necessary insurance companies actually are. For centuries, insurers have provided access to policies that allow businesses and individuals to enjoy some degree of protection against unforeseeable events. People rely on insurance companies to handle the risks associated with daily life, but fall victim to the whims of these companies that are very much business oriented. When the Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010, it opened the way for a new…
Read MoreTrustmark Life Insurance clashes with federal regulators over higher insurance rates
Trustmark Life Insurance Co. has run afoul of federal insurance regulators who claim that the company has raised rates for health insurance to unreasonable levels. The insurer has raised rates in five states by at least 13%, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. These states are Arizona, Virginia, Wyoming, Pennsylvania and Alabama. The Affordable Care Act requires insurers to submit their rate proposals for federal review if they pass the 10% mark. The Department of Health and Human Services has ordered the insurer to rescind the rate…
Read MoreKaiser Permanente plans to pay consumers to lose weight
Kaiser Permanente of Colorado has announced that policyholders may be eligible for cash bonuses if they are willing to lose weight. The insurance company’s new “Weigh and Win” program will award consumers with up to $150 every three months if they lose a certain amount of weight and keep it off. All adults are eligible to participate in the program, but participation is not mandatory for all Kaiser Permanente policyholders. The insurer claims that weight loss is as effective mammograms and cancer screenings in helping consumers manage their health. The…
Read MoreFirst large insurance company is ceasing coverage of Avastin breast cancer drug
Blue Shield in California, which is a health insurance company with 3.2 million members… is the first among the large insurers in the company to announce that they will no longer be providing coverage for the breast cancer drug called Avastin, following a unanimous recommendation by a federal advisory committee that the Food and Drug Administration rescind the medication’s approval as a treatment for the disease, stating that patients were not helped by its use. That said, Avastin is still holding onto its approval, as commissioner Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg…
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