Health-Plan Buyers Get a Look Under the Hood

[cbayer]

Until we get single payer, this kind of change is very important. Insurance companies have been scamming people for too long by not providing concise, coherent information about what you are buying.


Associated Press
Don Berwick, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, will help unveil the plan Wednesday.


By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS And JANET ADAMY

Consumers shopping for health insurance will soon get a peek at a new standard form—akin to the nutrition label on food products—that will lay out the details of each policy, from deductibles to how much it might cost to have a baby.

Federal regulators are expected to unveil the proposed summary form, part of the health-care overhaul law, on Wednesday, and the requirement is supposed to take effect next March.

"Now, every consumer will have clear, easy-to-read, and concise information that tells them what they need to know," said Erin Shields, spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services. Officials including Don Berwick, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, are scheduled to announce the proposal.

Currently, states mandate certain disclosures from health insurers, but they vary by state. The information often comes as part of a document known as the certificate of coverage or evidence of coverage, which can run to dozens of densely written pages and is often supplied only after a consumer has signed up for a policy. Employers offering coverage typically provide materials to their workers, but these also don't follow any common national format.


More at link:


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904253204576512494056148396.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[enlightenment]

1. Without seeing it, it's hard to say - but it sounds little different

from most summary benefits forms I've read. Concise is not always a good thing - it can be manipulated through omission just as easily as wordier documents confuse by burying the fine print. It is nice that they will let people read it before they buy the insurance, assuming they have been living in a state that has not mandated that insurance companies make the information available before purchase.

Still, this has nothing - absolutely nothing - to do with single payer. It's not going to get us any closer; it's not going to encourage a shift. As long as we praise it and pretend that it is a step on the path to single-payer we make it easier for those who oppose the single-payer model to claim that this fundamentally flawed program works just fine.

[cbayer]

2. Additional article on this:New Disclosure Rules For Health Insurers To Take Effect In 2012

By Anastasia Degtyarenko

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Wednesday a new set of rules under the Affordable Care Act that will provide customers with a better understanding of their health care coverage and will make insurance agencies more transparent.

“Insurance can sometimes be the most difficult part for people to understand, so many times people will make decisions on coverage and not understand what it means for them until they get sick,” said Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Don Berwick.

Berwick made clear that, with these regulations put in place, all consumers should have access to two key documents; a 4 page easily understandable Summary of Benefits and Coverage, and a glossary of commonly used terms used by insurers such as “co-pay” and “deductible.”


more at link:

http://www.talkradionews.com/quicknews/2011/8/17/new-disclosure-rules-for-health-insurers-to-take-effect-in-2.html