Premium will rise by 130% for Mass. (Drug) plan

The more than two million senior citizens nationwide who signed up last year for Humana Inc.'s least expensive Medicare prescription drug plan face average premium increases of 60 percent -- and in seven states, increases of 466 percent -- starting tomorrow . The higher prices will affect about 50,000 seniors in Massachusetts, where premiums are going up by 130 percent, from $7.32 to $16.90 a month.

Medicare added the prescription drug benefit in 2006, and in most states dozens of drug plans with varying coverage are available through insurance companies. Healthcare advocates say Humana kept its prices low in 2006 to gain market share. The strategy may prove lucrative, they say, because many seniors spent considerable time researching and selecting their drug insurance and were unlikely to switch plans for 2007, despite increased premiums.

The roughly 3.5 million members in Humana's three prescription drug plans nationwide were notified by mail of the price changes by Oct. 31. Enrollment for 2007 Medicare drug benefit, called Part D, ends today.

...Even though premiums are 130 percent higher in Massachusetts, Humana's Standard plan is still the state's second-lowest-priced Medicare drug insurance. Nationwide, Humana premiums in 2006 were the least expensive in 46 states, and will remain the cheapest in 38 states in 2007. Hardest hit are seven Midwestern and Western states, where monthly payments are going up 466 percent, from $1.87 to $10.60. The cost for Humana Standard is going down in just three states -- Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina.

I only buy insurance against bankruptcy or the loss of my freedom to travel freely! I advise all my clients to do the same. If you're talking dental insurance, or vision coverage... I agree fully! There's no need to "trade dollars" with an insurance company. They'll win that trade every time.

Hospital and medical expenses have grown into such a miserable monster with providers of service so insulated from negotiation, except by insurors with enough members to create clout, that it's simply foolhardy to run such a gauntlet of devastating risk nowadays!!!

Like you, I have been fortunate with good health and don't run to the Doctor unless I'm feeling really helpless to overcome the discomfort. But now one of us has discovered we have diabetes which we are controlling by changing our diet and increasing our exercise! But we've seen people run up bills over 4 to 8 million dollars!!!

People without healthcare insurance is one of the largest causes of bankruptcy and ruined relationships/families, today! If you are younger and think you are only subject to accidental injuries, you're nuts! Many more people are disabled by diseases than by injuries. That's why accident only disablility income insurance is so cheap! Think about that!!!

The Federal Government is budgeting $950/month for each medicare beneficiary. That why the insurer wasn't making too much profit charging Mrs. Wasp and I over $800/month at age 64 for $2,500 deductible health insurance. It wasn't our claims that was eating up those huge premiums. People were losing the gamble and we weren't going to be one of them. It's as simple as that! We didn't want a new year coming around with our number written on it!!!

I got into the health insurance business before there ever was a Medicare program. I can well remember a 3 bed hospital ward costing only $10/day in Beatrice, NE in 1963! Doctors still made house calls and even excepted canned goods in trade for services from poor people!

See what Socialism had done for us even with a segment of our population? Now we not only have Democrats that want to expand what Truman and LBJ established, we have an idiot Republican Governator in CA that's about ready to screw us all into the ground out here with some mandated form of Socialized Medicine that'll even pay for the illegal refugees from Mexico!!! It's just nuts!!!

If I hear boomer one more F' ing time I'm going to come right through this monitor and ring your neck personally. How is it my fault for being 49 the cause of your f'ing misery? I have paid taxes for nearly 35 years and don't expect to see one dime thanks to the "greatest generation" so piss off!!!

I was referring to those recreational drugs that have Boomers committing "road rage", and "air passenger rage".

Now I have to include "monitor rage"?

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