Iowa legislators met in the Senate on Monday to discuss the state’s federally-funded high risk insurance pool. Lawmakers were given copies of an editorial from the Des Moines Register during the meeting which outlined the program’s failure to enroll HIV-positive residents. The meeting quickly grew heated as lawmakers questioned members of the state’s Insurance Division over the matter. The insurance pool’s executive director, Cecil Bykerk, was also in attendance at the meeting and was subjected to questioning as well. Senator Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, had strong criticism for the insurance…
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Subsidized California health insurance program fails to meet enrollment goals
A subsidized program for health insurance in California that offers consumers an affordable form of protection when they have pre-existing medical conditions, has managed to break the 5,000 member level at its first birthday, but this was notably lower than the anticipated enrollment. The state had received $761 million from the federal government in order to operate the program until the 2014 start of the new healthcare insurance requirements for state-run insurance exchanges as a part of the Obama Administration’s healthcare overhaul. At the start of this subsidized insurance program,…
Read MoreMissouri residents in the highest risk group will have lower health insurance rates
Missouri officials have announced that they will be decreasing the rates for the high risk healthcare pool by 23 percent for both current and new participants in the program. In 2010, Missouri created a new health insurance pool for the highest risk group, but though it was anticipated that there would be about 3,000 people who joined the program, less than 600 have done so, as many claim that the premiums are simply too expensive. The reduction in the rates are being made possible by both federal funds and policyholder…
Read MoreLow enrollment in federal insurance program spurs a drop in premiums
Earlier this year, the federal government expanded the eligibility of a federal health insurance program to include those with preexisting conditions. The initiative was originally slated to take effect in 2014, along with the rest of the Affordable Care Act, but the Department of Health and Human Services enacted the new rules in an effort to ensure more people were receiving health insurance. The program, however, has been fraught with low enrollment, spurring the HHS to lower premiums by an average of 18% throughout the nation. The HHS hopes that…
Read MoreAnalysts: Enrollment in states’ pre-existing conditions insurance plans incredibly low
The health care reform law of 2010 is well known for a number of provisions that have succumb to a seemingly endless tide of controversy. These provisions generally garner the majority of public attention, but it is one provision that has been in effect for over a year now that may point to some fundamental flaws in the federal law. The provision in question is one that originally drew in public acclaim, but has since faded into obscurity. According to the law, each state must have a Pre-Existing Condition Insurance…
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