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Snips from excerpt only website: NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Industry experts say more insurers will drop health care coverage or go out of business if they are forced to meet a Jan. 1 deadline that requires them to boost the money devoted to providing care. Under health reform, beginning 2011, insurance companies will have to spend 80% to 85% of the premiums they collect on care instead of toward their own profits and overhead costs. Beginning in 2012 If insurers don't increase that loss ratio to 80 cents per dollar paid, they will have to give customers a rebate for...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Industry experts say more insurers will drop health care coverage or go out of business if they are forced to meet a Jan. 1 deadline that requires them to boost the money devoted to providing care. The Obama administration is awaiting the recommendation of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, meeting in Orlando this week, for how and when to implement key changes to the "Medical Loss Ratio" rule. For example, some plans have a 40% loss ratio. That means individuals could be paying $1 for 40 cents of care. Beginning in 2012 If insurers don't...

Massachusetts' strug gle to make "universal health insurance" work continues to be an excellent peek at what the entire nation faces when ObamaCare kicks in -- and the picture remains ugly. Gov. Deval Patrick has just reached a truce with three of the four top insurers in the state, compromising on this year's rate hikes for the small-business and individual markets. Plus, the state last week passed a law allowing some small businesses to form cooperatives to bargain jointly for health plans. But the numbers still don't add up. When the Bay State passed its health-reform law in 2006, 9...

The future of US medicine under ObamaCare is already on display in Massachusetts. The top four health insurers there just posted first-quarter losses of more than $150 million. Most of them blamed the state's decision to keep premiums at last year's levels for individual and small-business policies, when they'd proposed double-digit hikes to match the soaring costs they've seen under the state's universal-coverage law. The companies have gone to court to challenge the state's action -- it apparently had no basis for its ruling beyond the political needs of Gov. Deval Patrick. If they win, Bay State health premiums will...

The Boston Globe: Four of Massachusetts largest health insurers posted first-quarter losses with three blaming Gov. Deval Patrick's rate increase caps for the bulk of the financial hit that totaled more than $150 million. "The carriers attributed $116 million of their $152 million in losses to the April 1 ruling by the state Division of Insurance to deny most proposed premium increases for the so-called small-group market.

President Obama has an unsettling defense of his health-care reform -- it's merely a version of the plan implemented by Massachusetts. Obama wants to associate his reform with the one championed by Mitt Romney in 2006 when he was governor of the Bay State. If the liberal Democrat Obama and the conservative Republican Romney passed similar plans, what can be so radical about Obama's reform? This is superficially clever. It not only gives Obama's plan a centrist patina, it shines a light on a significant obstacle to Romney's likely repeat bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Except for the fact...

Do you remember how the Democrats framed the health-care “reform” fight as a battle against the insurance industry and its allies? Obama said the bill represented “standing up to the special interests.” Democratic House members attacked “reform” opponents regularly with statements like “We can either stand with the American people or with the insurance companies.” Majority Leader Harry Reid put it this way: “It’s about whether you will fight for insurance company profits, or for families’ peace of mind.” You could easily come up with dozens of similar examples with five minutes of searching the Web. Snip Now, that same...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius confronted insurance executives at their annual conference Wednesday — challenging them to divert millions in anti-reform advertising dollars toward cutting premiums and reciting a litany of insurance horror stories, to a decidedly chilly response. The head of the insurance lobby made clear later that she’s heard enough industry-bashing out of the White House.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama urged Congress on Tuesday to strip health insurers of their decades-old exemption from federal antitrust laws—hardening his stand against the industry as he tries to revive his stalled health care overhaul. The White House announced Obama's support for a House bill that would repeal the industry's antitrust exemption, saying that would foster a more competitive marketplace that benefits consumers. The announcement follows Obama's call for new federal rate-setting powers that would give the Health and Human Services department the power to deny excessive increases in health insurance premiums. "Removing this exemption will allow appropriate...

Imagine you're driving in a city, trying to find a place to park your car for the whole day. A parking garage costs $30. Right next to the parking garage entrance, you eye a parking spot on the street. Next to the curb is a sign that says, "No parking. Fine $5. No-tow zone." Many people wouldn't choose the garage. Likewise, imagine if you saw a sign that says, "Health insurance for sale: $200 a month," and right next to it was another sign. This one says, "Fine for not buying insurance: $33 a month -- but you can still...

Obama Threatens Insurers’ Anti-Trust Exemption By PETER BAKER Published: October 17, 2009 WASHINGTON — President Obama mounted a frontal assault on the insurance industry on Saturday, accusing it of using “deceptive and dishonest ads” to derail his health care legislation and threatening to strip the industry of its longstanding exemption from federal antitrust laws. In unusually harsh terms, Mr. Obama cast insurance companies as obstacles to change interested only in preserving their own “profits and bonuses” and willing to “bend the truth or break it” to stop his drive to remake the nation’s health care system. The president used his...

Throughout the heroic struggle in Congress to provide a "public option" in health insurance, one question never seems to get answered: Why are we so intent on protecting the private option? The "public option," as followers of the debate know, is a government-sponsored health plan that would be available as an alternative to, and in competition with, the for-profit health insurance industry, otherwise known as the private option. [...] So it's proper to remind ourselves what that American way entails. For if the insurers have proved anything over the last 15 years as the health crisis has gathered speed like...

Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky addressing over 500 Chicago area residents and local political leaders at the Health Care For America Now rally in Chicago. The rally called for quality, affordable health care for all in 2009.

The Hartford Financial Services Group (HIG: 14.73, n.a., n.a.%) announced Thursday that it has been given preliminary approval to receive $3.4 billion from TARP’s Capital Purchase Program, while Lincoln National (LNC: 16.27, n.a., n.a.%) announced it is set to receive $2.5 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Prudential Financial Group (PRU: 39.34, n.a., n.a.%) and Principal Financial Group (PFG: 18.85, n.a., n.a.%) had also been given clearance to receive TARP funds, citing a Treasury spokesman. The Journal said that Allstate (ALL: 25.18, n.a., n.a.%) and Ameriprise Financial (AMP: 25.02, n.a., n.a.%), two other insurance companies, would also...

LOS ANGELES — Six major insurers, including The Hartford Financial, Prudential Financial and Allstate, received preliminary approval Thursday for billions of dollars in aid from a U.S. bailout fund, following a months-long quest by some in the sector for financial assistance. The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. was the first to disclose that it had been notified by the Treasury Department that it was eligible for $3.4 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

Health insurance can seem impenetrable. For starters, have you tried reading your policy? It's dense. With different regulations in each state, countless varieties of policies and elusive pricing practices, health insurance can seem downright confounding. And wrapped up in all this are myths about health insurance that were perhaps once true -- or never were. Here's a look at seven things you probably didn't know about your health insurer.

Life insurers to impose 'fat tax' on the obese, costing up to 50 per cent moreBy BECKY BARROW - More by this author » Last updated at 22:37pm on 22nd February 2008  A "fat tax" is to be imposed on the obese by life insurance firms, it emerged last night.  Around 50 per cent extra could be charged on new premiums - and the threshold at which the higher rate starts will be lowered. The increased charge can be up to 400 per cent if you fall into other high risk categories, such as being a smoker or having...

The clock is running out for bond insurers to save their triple-A credit ratings. In congressional testimony yesterday, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer gave a three-to-five-day time frame for the bond insurers to raise much-needed capital or find other ways to resolve their problems. Mr. Spitzer urged banks, private-equity funds and investors that are working with bond insurers on various rescue and capitalization plans to "act with some increasing rapidity, because time is short," adding that a congressional move to resolve the issue would likely be too slow. Bond insurers -- relatively obscure companies that insure the principal and interest...

'Give genetic test secrets to insurers' By Nicole Martin Last Updated: 1:58am BST 08/06/2007 The results of genetic tests should be passed on to insurance companies to allow them to assess the health risks of potential customers, a professor of bioethics says today. Prof Soren Holm, from Cardiff University Law School, says that genetic information is no more "sensitive or private" than other information about a person's health, including cholesterol levels and body mass index, which insurers can use to help them to set premiums. His recommendation was immediately rejected by health charities. They said greater openness could lead to...

WASHINGTON, April 26 — The Bush administration issued a new policy on Wednesday that protects Medicare beneficiaries against the sudden loss of coverage for drugs they are taking under the prescription drug program. Under the policy, insurers can still change their lists of covered drugs, known as formularies. But if they drop any drugs or impose new restrictions, they must exempt beneficiaries who are now taking those drugs. Dr. Mark B. McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, summarized the policy this way: "In general, a plan cannot change your coverage for the drugs you are using...