Mass. Report On Insurers' Financial Health Provides Mixed Portrait Kaiser Health News
The Boston Globe reports: "A long-awaited state report to be released today will probably add fuel to the debate about surging health costs by portraying a mixed financial picture of Massachusetts health insurers. The state's eight health insurers finished 2008 with a total surplus of $2.5 billion, a more than four-fold increase from 1999 when the study period began, according to a 17-page executive summary of the report from the Division of Health Care Finance and Policy that was obtained by the Globe." However, when using a different accounting tool, the companies are not doing as well, the paper reported. "The summary of the report did not address the key concern of consumers: whether or how the significant increases in premiums they paid over the past decade contributed to the companies' surpluses” (Weisman and Lazar, 5/2).The Wall Street Journal reports that in the health law, "lawmakers overlooked a big and growing problem:" how college students get health care. "Not only do colleges sometimes overcharge students for health services, but school health plans are so confusing that students often don't know they owe money until they are hit with late fees. The result: spiraling medical bills for young people. … The college health system is a crazy quilt of private coverage and student plans, with few rules governing how schools charge for coverage or on-campus services. More than half of U.S. colleges offer a school-sponsored plan in which students pay premiums for coverage. Some automatically enroll students in their plans unless the students sign a waiver proving that they are covered by an outside policy. Other schools require students to use their plans no matter what. Still others require students to have outside coverage. Whether or not schools offer coverage, they frequently charge students who are covered on a parent's plan more for basic services like a check-up with a doctor, prescriptions or X-rays. All told, colleges overcharge students and families by $2.3 billion to $2.9 billion a year on health-center fees, premiums for student plans and fees for specific services, according to research from consulting firm Keybridge Research LLC commissioned by Highland Campus Health Group, a company that provides billing services to schools” (Pilon, 5/1).
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