Personalities Matter! (Even at the Federal Level)
Now that we have a new President-Elect, Donald Trump, a pretty huge amount of uncertainty has filtered into the healthcare (and health insurance) business.
So, THAT was a surprise! With President Trump, What Happens to My Health Insurance?
I have been pummeled with many, many different reactions since the Nov. 8 election and more questions than I can shake a stick at. I suspect my next few blog posts will be about roughly these same topics. But, before we dive into the questions, let me tell you a bit of what I’ve figured out so far about the future of health insurance and the Affordable Care Act (healthcare reform law).
The Federal Role in Benefit Design in Individual Health Insurance: Are You Better Off?
Note from Mike: I’m sifting through the information coming out about the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, Medicare and healthcare in a Trump presidency. I’ll be back soon to offer my take on it, but in the meantime, see this Q&A on what Blue Cross is doing right now.
In my last blog post, I gave details about how much rates for individual customers’ health insurance are going up next year and why. I promised do a future blog about not just how much premiums cost, but how much financial protection the federally-designed products for 2017 give the average customer. This may get a bit wonky, so please bear with me as you go through.
The Plain and Ugly Truth about Rate Increases
What’s the Deal with Medicare
Today, 50 years after it was signed into law, what we call “Medicare” may be the most misunderstood program the government has. Since the annual “Open Enrollment” for the Medicare Advantage (MA) market just began, I thought this was a great time to review a few things about Medicare.
Obesity Bias and Health Outcomes: Will Losing Weight Cure Everything?
One thing I’ve learned after 55 years on this planet is that we all walk around every day with biases that color our decision making. Some of these biases can be safety-related (“I really don’t want that wild snake in my home, even though I can’t tell a poisonous one from a safe one!”) or designed to support sensible decision making (“I probably won’t give Jim any more work, since he keeps getting caught stealing from the company!”) or even beneficial to society (“Sure, I could dump these excess chemicals into that river with no idea what impact they would have on the environment, but it just feels wrong!”).