Managed Care Growth May Be Cause Of Health Insurance Inflation Rate Hitting Five-Year Peak
Experts also said the increase in the health insurance index could be driven by the fact that insurers' medical loss ratios may be decreasing as high premiums, particularly in the individual health insurance exchanges, exceed anticipated claims. News on the insurance marketplace in the states comes out of California, Florida and North Carolina.
Modern Healthcare:
Health Insurance Inflation Hits Highest Point In Five Years
The health insurance inflation rate hit a five-year peak in April, possibly because managed care is rising. The Consumer Price Index for health insurance in April spiked 10.7% over the previous 12 months—the largest increase since at least April 2014, according to a Modern Healthcare analysis of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' unadjusted monthly Consumer Price Index data. (Livingston, 5/17)
Sacramento Bee:
Gavin Newsom Turns To Obamacare Playbook For Census Outreach
With millions of dollars in federal funding at stake, California is trying some unusual strategies to encourage hard-to-count populations to participate in the census and exploring ways to link them with other public outreach efforts, including ones aimed at uninsured Californians. The Californians the state is targeting for the census tend to be poor. (Bollag, Finch II and Caiola, 5/20)
Tampa Bay Times:
Thousands Of Florida Children Have No Health Insurance. A New Infusion Of Money Aims To Help.
Thousands of children in Florida will have greater access to health care now that legislators have steered more money to a program that reduces the cost of health insurance plans for low- and middle-income families. The action takes aim at the problem of uninsured children, whose numbers at last count have grown to an estimated 325,000 in Florida, the second-largest total in the nation. The funding will go to the Florida Healthy Kids Corp., a public-private organization that offers health insurance to children up to 18 whose families earn too much income to qualify for Medicaid. (Griffin, 5/17)
North Carolina Health News:
Treasurer Moves Forward With Health Care Pricing Plan Despite Uncertainty
This week, state treasurer Dale Folwell released the details of the contracts he wants North Carolina’s health care providers to sign if they want to participate in the health plan covering state employees, retirees and their families. The contracts, part of what Folwell is calling the Clear Pricing Project, reworks the way that health care providers are reimbursed. Some providers, in particular hospitals, will feel the pinch under the plan, which pegs prices paid by the State Health Plan to those paid by the federal Medicare program for services. (Hoban, 5/17)
