HealthSpring becomes 7th largest Medicare Advantage plan provider

Ritter Insurance Marketing has news that HealthSpring has purchased Bravo Health to add 100,000 members to their Medicare Advantage coverage. This will make them the seventh largets Medicare Advantage provider with 397,000 members. The company primarily covers markets in Texas and Philadelphia.

Would it be smart to tax unhealthly food?

Melissa Healy has an article in the LA Times looking at the dramatic increase in US obesity and its effects on the current healthcare reform. Obesity in the United States rose from 18.3% in 1998 to 25% in 2006. This has increased government healthcare spending to over $40 billion a year. Healy suggests that it might be beneficial to go down the same road with unhealthy food as was done with cigarettes a few years ago, heavily tax that which is not good for you. Tax the foods to change the way people eat, and increase the taxes 10-30% and use the taxes received to pay for the heatlhcare of the obese. It would also be wise to increase tax subsidies on foods that are healthy, such as fruits and vegetables. What do you think?

2010 rates for Medicare to be confirmed today

According to the Wall Street Journal, it will be announced today whether the 2010 Medicare Advantage rates will be finalized. If they are, then many private Medicare Advantage health plans for seniors will likely be cut. Read the full story here.

Medicare Advantage cuts to come

Medicare Advantage Plan suppliers will be receiving cuts in the amount of payments they receive. The privately run programs that offer government health plans provide healthcare for roughly 10 million of 44 million senior citizens. In its current state, the government pays $1.30 for each Medicare Advantage plan holder as opposed to $1.00 for each person enrolled in Medicare through the government. For more, read the article here.

Obama to Cut Medicare Advantage

According to this post on CQPolitics.com, Obama has claimed in a recent interview on ABC’s “This Week” that Medicare Advantage is an example of an initiative that does not work, and so eliminating it altogether would free up $200 billion that can be used on expanding health care.

Obama later mentions,

“We are spending a lot of money subsidizing the insurance companies around something called Medicare Advantage, a program that gives them subsidies to accept Medicare recipients, but doesn’t necessarily make people on Medicare healthier.”

Do you think getting rid of Medicare Advantage will help solve our national health care dilemma?

AP: Medicare insurers' profits exceed expectations

Health insurance companies that serve the elderly and disabled in Medicare are realizing significantly higher profits than they anticipated, resulting in the companies getting $1.3 billion more than projected, congressional auditors say.

This is likely due to an increase in payments to companies by the elderly, without an increase in services by the organizations. This money is now being seen as a profit that the companies in question must diligently work with the government to make sure that the clients served via Medicare are getting the best care that they deserve. We'll keep you posted on any new developments.

For the rest of this article, please click here.

Medicare Co-Pays and Premiums Expected to Rise

FierceHealthcare reports today that a recent study conducted by Avalere Health LLC found that for the largest 10 drug companies, premiums are expected to rise up an average of 31 percent next year. It is also speculated that this in term might cause insurers to increase drug co-payments 75 percent (about $7) for generic drugs and a 60% increase (about $40) for brand drugs.

A spokesperson from Humana, an insurer, mentions:

“Prices reflect the experience we've seen over the past three years, and our expectations around what will most interest our members and potential members going forward."

More advertising dollars going to Medicare Advantage

In a recent study done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, detailed here at the Washington Post, they found that insurers spent three times more money promoting comprehensive Medicare plans rather than stand alone drug plans. The study was conducted between October 1 and December 31, 2007, with an increased effort looking at what's going on with Medicare marketing practices. For the most part, the commercials emphasized the benefits centered around preventative care, vision and hearing benefits.