Dec 10 2010
Insurers continue to "ponder" their future under the new order of the health law and, in California, rate increases trigger a blame game.
The New York Times: After Aetna, Pondering Health Care
When tensions between the Obama administration and the nation's health insurers were at their highest earlier this year, Ronald A. Williams, the chief executive of Aetna, stood out as one of the few industry voices that still resonated within the White House (Abelson, 12/9).
The Sacramento Bee: California Health Insurers Blame Rising Hospital Costs For Premium Increases
As health insurers again increase premiums on thousands of subscribers, the industry is seeking to shift the debate over escalating health care costs to the rising price of hospital care. In California, hospital prices jumped 150 percent since 2000, according to a study of state hospital data conducted by America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's trade association (Calvan, 12/10).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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