Health Insurance News and Research

RSS

NPAF's message to White House Summit participants: Policy agreement must triumph over partisan politics

The National Patient Advocate Foundation -- the sister organization to the Patient Advocate Foundation -- a direct patient services organization that assists patients throughout the country – delivered a message to all White House Summit participants that policy agreement must triumph over partisan politics during the bipartisan health care reform meeting.

27 Feb 2010

Aetna.com: Most visited health insurance website

The recently redesigned Aetna.com is a hit with web surfers, who made it the most visited website among health insurers in the fourth quarter of 2009. In fact, 20 percent of Americans who visited a health insurance website during the quarter visited an Aetna site, according to “The Online Health Insurance Landscape,” an independent online audience measurement of health insurance websites recently released by comScore.

27 Feb 2010

Secretary of Labor: Congress extends unemployment insurance, COBRA safety net programs

It is essential that Congress extend the unemployment insurance and COBRA safety net programs that are part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act past their current expiration date of Feb. 28. If Emergency Unemployment Compensation and full federal funding of the Extended Benefit program are not extended, 400,000 Americans will lose these vital benefits during the first couple of weeks in March.

27 Feb 2010

National Alliance for Hispanic Health urges Congress to support health insurance reform bill

"Health is more than insurance coverage, but it is critical that this step be accomplished as we continue our journey towards health care for all," said Dr. Jane L. Delgado, President and CEO of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health, the nation's leading Hispanic health advocacy group. According to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than a third (37.1%) of Hispanic workers do not have health insurance.

27 Feb 2010

State roundup: S.C. plan would end benefits to 30,000 disabled residents; Judge bars Calif. from cutting elderly from day care; Mass. faces lawsuit on immigrant health care

Children with autism, people with spine and brain injuries and the long-term disabled in job programs are among the 30,000 people who would lose state help under a $5.1 billion spending plan approved by a House committee Thursday.

27 Feb 2010

Health Policy Research Roundup: Length of hospital stays, analyses of Obama's reform proposals

Archives Of Internal Medicine: Hospital Cost Of Care, Quality Of Care, And Readmission Rates - This study compares patients treated for pneumonia and congestive heart failure (CHF) and finds that high-cost hospitals don't always deliver better care. The researchers, who based their analysis on the data from 3,146 hospitals in the 2004 to 2006 Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR), report that "risk-adjusted costs of care for CHF and pneumonia varied widely between hospitals, although hospital cost-of-care patterns seemed stable over time and correlated across conditions."

27 Feb 2010

BestHealthcareRates.com to merge with Parasol Financial & Insurance Solutions

BestHealthcareRates.com announced a business merger with Parasol Financial & Insurance Solutions. The joint company will adopt the name Parasol and will provide an expanded portfolio of financial and insurance products, including life, Medicare and income disability coverage for individuals and groups.

27 Feb 2010

Cancer researchers assess PCI-32765 drug that targets molecular abnormalities of lymphoma cells

Cancer researchers have high hopes for a new therapy for patients with certain types of lymphoma and leukemia.

27 Feb 2010

Criticism, passion emerge at health care summit

NPR interviewed Rep. Dave Camp, ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee. Camp said: "We were able to at least be heard and have some exposure to the ideas that we've been promoting for a long time. And the president did finally say in the close that we do have ideas that lower costs in insurance and that — do it without increasing taxes. And we don't cut Medicare. And we don't have new mandates in our proposals. So this is really the first opportunity we've had to really focus not only our colleagues and the president, but also the American people on the proposals we've had" (Siegel, 2/25).

26 Feb 2010

Landrieu comments on the release of updated report addressing healthcare concerns of small businesses

Following the President's bipartisan health care forum yesterday, it is good to see that the administration is continuing to address the healthcare concerns of small businesses. The fact is, owners want to provide stable, quality insurance for their employees and they need to in order to stay competitive. But as this report reveals, skyrocketing costs are too much to bear.

26 Feb 2010

California subpoenas financial records of seven biggest insurers

"The California state attorney general's office said Thursday that it had subpoenaed financial records of California's seven largest health insurance companies as part of an investigation into whether they illegally raised customer premiums and denied payment of legitimate claims," the Los Angeles Times reports. "Prosecutors said they sought documents from Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna Health, Blue Shield of California, Cigna, Health Net, Kaiser Permanente and PacifiCare."

26 Feb 2010

Bipartisan health care summit: NSBA pleads with lawmakers to move beyond rhetoric

Following today's bipartisan health care summit, NSBA is pleading with lawmakers to move beyond the rhetoric. Small-business owners across the U.S. have been struggling for years with the rising cost of health care, and need Congress to act now. For small businesses, the bottom line is addressing health care costs—not the intentions, not the proposals and most certainly not the debates.

26 Feb 2010

Employer-sponsored health plans: 66% of state and local government employees enrolled in 2008

About 66 percent of the nearly 20 million state and local government employees were enrolled in employer-sponsored health plans in 2008, compared with 54 percent of private-sector workers, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

26 Feb 2010

Idaho Health Freedom Act may have severe implications on health care system in Idaho: AARP

As the President and a bipartisan group of members of Congress come together today to discuss how to tackle the nation's growing health care crisis, Idaho Senators are poised to debate a bill tomorrow that could make the issue worse in the state. The Idaho Health Freedom Act (HB 391), taking aim at a component of a non-existent federal health care law, could wreak havoc in Idaho, while costing the state money and jobs.

26 Feb 2010

Blair House bipartisan meeting on health insurance reform: Speaker Pelosi's remarks

"As we sit around this table, I think we should be mindful of what they do when they sit around their kitchen table. What we do here must be relevant to their lives. And for them, they don't have time for us to start over. Many of them are at the end of the line with their insurance…I just hope that as we sit around this table, we understand the urgency that the American people have about this issue, how it affects not only their health, but their economic security."

26 Feb 2010

DNC Chairman releases statement on President's bipartisan health reform summit

Today's summit on the future of health care in this country, while far from resolving all of the differences between Republicans and Democrats on reforming our broken health insurance system, was a huge win for the American people.

26 Feb 2010

Global Health Partner AB's fourth-quarter revenues increase 13%

2009 was an eventful year, with a mixture of successes and breakthroughs, but also with some challenges which required that measures be taken during the autumn. Our mature clinics continued to develop well during the year, as did most of our newly started clinics. 2009 was therefore the first time that we achieved a positive whole-year result before close-down costs in England, despite increasing development and start-up costs for the Group as a whole.

26 Feb 2010

Aetna Foundation announces two grants to eliminate health and health care disparities

The Aetna Foundation today announced two grants totaling $250,000 as part of its continuing efforts to establish racial and ethnic equity in health and health care. The elimination of health and health care disparities is one of three primary focus areas of the Aetna Foundation’s grant-making.

26 Feb 2010

DNC Hispanic Caucus Chairwoman issues statement praising President Obama's bipartisan meeting

Today's discussion was an encouraging step in the fight for health insurance reform. I commend the President for his continued leadership on the issue, which is a top priority for Latinos. Our community is disproportionately affected by lack of health insurance and insurers' unscrupulous practices – which is why Latinos and all Americans need health reform now.

26 Feb 2010

One in three young adults is uninsured; Obama health plan includes CHIP extension

News outlets report on the number of uninsured young adults and issues affecting the Children's Health Insurance Program.

26 Feb 2010

Health Insurance News and Research

NPAF's message to White House Summit participants: Policy agreement must triumph over partisan politics

Aetna.com: Most visited health insurance website

Secretary of Labor: Congress extends unemployment insurance, COBRA safety net programs

National Alliance for Hispanic Health urges Congress to support health insurance reform bill

State roundup: S.C. plan would end benefits to 30,000 disabled residents; Judge bars Calif. from cutting elderly from day care; Mass. faces lawsuit on immigrant health care

Health Policy Research Roundup: Length of hospital stays, analyses of Obama's reform proposals

BestHealthcareRates.com to merge with Parasol Financial & Insurance Solutions

Cancer researchers assess PCI-32765 drug that targets molecular abnormalities of lymphoma cells

Criticism, passion emerge at health care summit

Landrieu comments on the release of updated report addressing healthcare concerns of small businesses

California subpoenas financial records of seven biggest insurers

Bipartisan health care summit: NSBA pleads with lawmakers to move beyond rhetoric

Employer-sponsored health plans: 66% of state and local government employees enrolled in 2008

Idaho Health Freedom Act may have severe implications on health care system in Idaho: AARP

Blair House bipartisan meeting on health insurance reform: Speaker Pelosi's remarks

DNC Chairman releases statement on President's bipartisan health reform summit

Global Health Partner AB's fourth-quarter revenues increase 13%

Aetna Foundation announces two grants to eliminate health and health care disparities

DNC Hispanic Caucus Chairwoman issues statement praising President Obama's bipartisan meeting

One in three young adults is uninsured; Obama health plan includes CHIP extension

Industry Focus eBook - Forensics & toxicology (2nd edition) eBook

Bringing real-time analytics to downstream bioprocess monitoring

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

Latest News