HEALTH REFORM: Expect Pluses, Minuses for Those With Job-Based Coverage - iVillage - 0 views
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Beginning in 2014, for instance, the reform package prohibits employer-sponsored health plans from excluding people from coverage based on pre-existing health conditions
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It also makes larger employers responsible for offering medical coverage. Beginning Jan. 1, 2015, businesses with more than 50 workers must offer health insurance to full-time workers and dependents or pay penalties.
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annual limits will be banned completely in 2014.
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Experts say smaller companies that employ 50 or more workers and currently provide health insurance may drop coverage because it would be cheaper to pay fines than maintain coverage for all of their workers. Most large employers (with more than 1,000 employees) remain committed to providing health benefits for the next five years, according to an employer survey by Towers Watson/National Business Group on Health. But just 26 percent are confident that they will be offering health-care benefits a decade from now. Meanwhile, a number of large employers are eyeing private health insurance exchanges as a way to continue providing job-based coverage while controlling spending on health benefits. Much like the public exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, private exchanges represent a new way for employees and families to shop for group health coverage and other benefits. Instead of offering a limited number of health plans, the employer would give workers a set amount of money to buy their own coverage. Kaiser, who works in Gallagher Benefit Services' Mount Laurel, N.J., office, anticipates a slow migration toward private exchanges. "I don't think it's going to be a mass disruption of employer-sponsored plans where they all go, 'I'm out of the game,'" he said. More information The University of California, Berkeley Labor Center, has summarized provisions of the Affordable Care Act affecting employer-sponsored insurance.
Study: Employees often pick lower-cost health plans - 0 views
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The number of people enrolled in health savings accounts (HSA) has more than tripled in the last six years from 4.5 million people in January 2007 to 15.5 million in January 2013, according to America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade association that represents health insurers.
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In the future, Cohen said he expects to see several options used more widely to lower costs, such as rewards for low cholesterol or keeping diabetes under control, incentives to join gyms and benefits for participating in healthy lifestyle programs.
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The data also shows that businesses could save money while providing their employees with more choices, he said. Some of those choices, such as closed-network programs or single primary-care physician-based programs, have been avoided in the past because the common wisdom is that people don't like being limited by what doctors they may see.
Medical-Price Inflation Is at Slowest Pace in 50 Years - WSJ.com - 0 views
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"Fifteen years ago, pricing was not as important…[but] when the co-pay is coming out of a patient's pocket, they more often want to know what they're paying," said Moshir Jacob, medical director at the Toledo Clinic. The Ohio practice advertises that it offers lower prices than area hospita
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Others doubt there has been a structural change. "We haven't done anything in the past three or four years that fundamentally altered the health-care system," said Gerard Anderson of Johns Hopkins University, who was the lead author of the "It's the Prices, Stupid" paper a decade ago. "And everything in Obamacare that tried to control cost was watered down."
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The system now offers members a choice: Have your procedure at one of 51 hospitals that agreed to limit what they charge, or have the surgery elsewhere and pay any expenses above $30,000 out of pocket.
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Business Boondoggle: Shedding the Cost of Health Care | The Fiscal Times - 0 views
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he actions of these other employers don’t detract from the unique nature of Walgreens’ decision. Two months earlier, the retailer announced its partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services to extol the benefits of Obamacare to its employees and its customers. Their website still features the effort, and brochures continue to be distributed even while the corporation itself realizes that compliance must force it to abandon employer-provided health insurance for the people in the stores distributing the brochures to customers.
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With the CBO predicting that rising health-care costs would increase at twice the rate of other federal spending, the same increase in costs will now be borne almost entirely by employees. Finally, it appears that the private-exchange option will satisfy the employer mandate, which means that the employees cannot bail out of these private exchanges in order to qualify for federal subsidies, which prevents the employers from having to pay increasing fines for non-compliance.
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limit the liability of the third-party payer.
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Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review: "If You Like Your Doctor You Will Be Able to... - 0 views
Insurers restricting choice of doctors and hospitals to keep costs down - The Washingto... - 0 views
Texas is curtailing health costs with own program | www.statesman.com - 0 views
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Doctors complain, though, that the savings comes from cutting reimbursement rates, which discourages health care providers from accepting Medicaid patients. The Texas Medical Association also expressed disappointment that Gov. Rick Perry rejected proposals to expand the number of people on Medicaid to include the working poor.
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But since the poor and uninsured often rely on expensive emergency room care, Lunsford said hospitals will continue to pass on those costs to the public when those patients don’t pay their bills.
MIAMI: Insurers curbing costs as health care costs rise - Business Wires - MiamiHerald.com - 0 views
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Starting in October, consumers shopping on the new exchange will be able to choose from bronze, silver, gold, platinum and catastrophic plans that offer a range of premiums, deductibles and co-pays depending on variables such as how many doctors you want included in your network.That's why Smithberger says it's important that consumers look at more than the bottom line when choosing plans. It may be the lowest priced plan, but it may have a very high deductible or only offer a limited number of doctors.
Should Mental Health Be a Primary-Care Doctor's Job? : The New Yorker - 0 views
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It’s estimated that seventy per cent of a primary-care doctor’s practice now involves management of psychosocial issues ranging from marriage counselling to treatment of anxiety and depression.
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Fewer medical students are going into psychiatry, partly because psychiatrists, like primary-care doctors, earn among the lowest salaries of all physicians. Those who do choose psychi
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