health insurance

Court: State can't cut legal immigrants off from state health insurance just to save money

adamg — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:24:55 +0000

The Supreme Judicial Court today overturned a law that prohibits certain legal immigrants from obtaining subsidized insurance from the state's Commonwealth Care program.

The court said saving money was the main rationale behind a law passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Patrick limiting the number of immigrants who could sign up for Commonwealth Care - and saving money is not a good enough reason under the state constitution for "invidious discrimination against aliens."

Group fails to get enough signatures for ballot question to repeal health-insurance mandate

adamg — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:41:42 +0000

WBUR reports on a group called MAIM that wanted to eliminate the requirement than individuals buy health insurance if they don't have employers who provide it.

Kevin Cullen buried the lead on Blue Cross Blue Shield

adamg — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 15:07:18 +0000

Yeah, how dare Deval Patrick not excoriate Blue Cross Blue Shield for the $28 million it's paid out to its last two departing CEOs.

But I really wanted to hear more about the guy in Weymouth Cullen gets to at the very end of his column, who had to lend his daughter $2,000 to pay for the surgery on his granddaughter that the giant insurer wouldn't pay. It's an interesting followup to the Herald's report about the guy whose insurance Blue Cross threatened to cut off because his premium payment was 10 cents short. It's stories like those that are going to get the Attorney General (who, unlike the governor, actually oversees charities and non-profits) to maybe do some investigatin'.

Harvard Pilgrim, Tufts Health Care lose the urge to merge

adamg — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:15:18 +0000

WBUR reports they're just too different to make a merger work.

Patrick proposes overhaul of health-insurance payments

adamg — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 15:08:49 +0000

Blue Mass. Group posts some details of the plan to create new "accountable care organizations" of hospitals and doctors that would manage the overall care of groups of patients, in theory bringing down health-care prices - just like HMOs were supposed to do by managing the overall care of groups of patients.

ACOs explained.

Harvard Pilgrim, Tufts Health Care to merge

adamg — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 12:46:29 +0000

WBUR reports and analyzes the implications to businesses and individual consumers.

No word yet on the new name; if they can't figure out which comes first, they could compromise and call it Brandeis Health Care.

Local small business gets whacked by health-insurance costs

adamg — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:02:46 +0000

Joanne Chang-Myers tweets:

Heath ins prems went up 32% for Flour w this renewal. Weighing alternatives-offering 2K deductible plan feels incred unfair to staff.

Via Adam Castiglioni.

Small businesses finding it cheaper to pay state penalties than buy health insurance for workers

adamg — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 11:43:20 +0000

The Globe reports.

Given the political risks of raising the penalties in a recession, Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, can't figure out if this is something just happening at the margins - health insurance being a benefit employers use to lure and keep workers - or something far more significant that could affect the national health-insurance system, which is based on ours.

Judge tells health insurers they can't raise their rates for small businesses just yet

adamg — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:36:57 +0000

Go back and go through an administrative appeals process - with the state insurance division, which just rejected the rate hikes - the judge told the insurers, WBUR reports.

Poor Martha Coakley: Even the governor is ignoring her, at least on health-care costs

adamg — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:45:20 +0000

Paul Levy, CEO at Beth Israel Deaconess (and, yes, a Charlie Baker backer), explains why Deval Patrick's attempt to regulate health-insurance premiums will fail because it ignores the monopolistic overhead charged by archrival Partners HealthCare - a factor Coakley noted in a report released just two weeks ago.

In a state with so much health insurance, why do so many people still go to the ER for non-emergency care?

adamg — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:42:31 +0000

A report last week indicated the number of non-emergency visits to Massachusetts emergency rooms hasn't really dropped since the state began requiring everybody to have health insurance.

Anya Rader Wallack, whose Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation helped fund the report explains some of the reasons why - most notably, people seeking medical care after their normal practitioners have gone home for the day:

... suggests that one way to significantly reduce ED visits in Massachusetts for non-emergency conditions is simply by offering care during evening and early morning hours as well as on weekends, or by managing more primary care needs over the phone (something for which physicians seldom receive reimbursement). ...

How the state could ensure even more people get health insurance

adamg — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:32:05 +0000

Insure the people who actually apply for health insurance. Mike Mennonno provides the latest chapter in his saga to get coverage through MassHealth:

... It's a hassle. But the worst that can happen is I will be uninsured and assessed a penalty at tax time. The penalty in 2007 was a measly $219/year, which, frankly, is worth paying to avoid dealing with the clowns at MassHealth in Revere (I can only imagine the drab cubicles, stained carpets, antiquated computers, and the sad, angry race of cube-dwellers paying for their sins in this bureaucratic hell). In 2008 the penalties have increased as well. For me, it would come out to $420.

Still a bargain, in a way, when you think about it.

Universal healthcare: One user's experience

adamg — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:12:52 +0000

ChezNiki describes what it's like to actually be covered by one of the plans set up for people who don't have work-provided health insurance:

... This so-called Universal Healthcare takes a law degree and three or four agencies to decipher, and will be a nightmare for anyone with a language barrier, a temp job or seasonal work. The State will have a very difficult time collecting the tax penalties from people who couldn’t afford the healthcare in the first place. People whose taxes are ultimately taken may even form a class and sue. And the uninsured, underinsured and folk with misplaced paperwork will wind up where we always do for our health care, in an eight to twelve hour wait in Emergency. ...

Insuring a mess?

adamg — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 03:30:47 +0000

Mike Mennonno on the news that the state now thinks a lot of people who already have health insurance will have to buy even more under the state's new health-coverage law: Mass. "Universal Health Coverage" is the new Big Dig.

Which probably represents the first time ever that Mennonno and the Margolis Boys agree on something.

Should health care be a constitutional right?

adamg — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 17:47:47 +0000

Looks like you might get to vote this fall on whether to add health care as a right guaranteed by the state constitution.

UPDATE: No, you won't.

Sushiesque posts photos of protesters outside today's legislative Constitutional Convention.

Bay Windows liveblogging of the convention.

John Keith is soooo upset that the anti-gay-marriage air force has been grounded for the day because of the rain:

... Or, maybe they crashed into each other.

Either way, a win-win.

Although not before they buzzed Spatch enough to make him wish he could move to an island and set up his own benevolent dictatorship.