Tag: National Association of Insurance Commissioners

Website Errors Raise Calls For Medicare To Be Flexible With Seniors’ Enrollment

Seniors will be able to change plans any time next year if they discover their coverage doesn’t provide what the government’s Plan Finder promised. 

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | December 6, 2019 | This article also ran on

Saturday is the deadline for most people with Medicare coverage to sign up for private drug and medical plans for next year. But members of Congress, health care advocates and insurance agents worry that enrollment decisions based on bad information from the government’s revamped, error-prone Plan Finder website will bring unwelcome surprises.

Beneficiaries could be stuck in plans that cost too much and don’t meet their medical needs — with no way out until 2021.

On Wednesday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services told Kaiser Health News that beneficiaries would be able to change plans next year because of Plan Finder misinformation, although officials provided few details. [Continued at Kaiser Health News or NPR.]   …

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Insurance Commissioners Reject Calls To Limit Seniors’ Medigap Policies

By Susan Jaffe  KAISER HEALTH NEWS in collaboration with      Dec. 6, 2012

The nation’s insurance commissioners have some stern advice about proposals to shrink Medicare spending by asking seniors with supplemental Medigap policies to pay more out of pocket for their health care: Don’t do it.

The health law requires the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to advise the administration about whether seniors would use fewer Medicare services — and therefore, cost the government less money — if the most popular Medigap plans were less generous.

“Everything we’ve looked at has shown that increasing cost-sharing does stop people from seeking medical care,” said Bonnie Burns, a training and policy specialist at California Health Advocates who serves on an NAIC committee that has studied the issue for more than a year. “The problem is they stop using both necessary and unnecessary care.” [More in The Washington Post] or longer version from Kaiser Health News]

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By Susan Jaffe |  Feb. 9, 2012 | KAISER HEALTH NEWS  in partnership with  mcclatchy skinny logo

The Obama administration Thursday unveiled final regulations detailing the new health insurance summaries that the federal health law requires plans to give to consumers to help them make informed coverage choices.

Mila Kofman, a research professor at Georgetown University… said that when consumers shop for insurance now, “co-insurance” or “annual deductible” may mean different things depending on the policy. Providing uniform information that’s easy to understand will empower consumers, she said.

“This will fundamentally change the way insurance is sold and the way is bought, and will make it much easier for consumers,” she said.   [More from KHN or McClatchy]

 

New labels will soon help consumers choose health plans

 

By Susan Jaffe, May 7, 2011, KAISER HEALTH NEWS  in collaboration with The Chicago Tribune

Cars have sticker prices, ketchup bottles have nutrition-facts labels, and soon health plans will get coverage labels.

For the first time, consumers  shopping for a health policy will be able to get a good idea of how Chicago Tribune logomuch of the costs different plans will cover for three medical conditions: maternity care, treatment for diabetes and breast cancer. And because buying insurance is more complicated than buying a can of soup, the proposed insurance labels are two pages long.  ….The new “coverage facts labels” are required under the health overhaul law, which directed the National Assn. of Insurance Commissioners to draft them. [MORE]…