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Murder, vitriol, and hidden costs: inside the health insurance industry’s biggest battles

KevinMD.com

With the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, many have expressed vitriol towards the insurance industry. Having worked in non-profit health care all my life, I decided in 2018 to switch to the “dark side,” or the insurance industry, out of curiosity. What is it that they do, and how are they doing it?

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In the Past Ten Years, Workers’ Health Insurance Premiums Have Grown Much Faster Than Wages

Health Populi

who benefits from health insurance at the workplace, the annual family premium will average $21,342 this year, according to the 2020 Employer Health Benefits Survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Workers receiving health insurance through their jobs have seen their portfolio of benefits changing over the years.

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Americans End 2018 Worried About Healthcare Costs

Health Populi

Health insurance in-security is mainstream as of November 2018, when Gallup polled U.S. It’s also a big concern for four in ten people that someone in their family would be denied health insurance covering for a pre-existing condition, or that they might h ave to go without health insurance at some point.

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The Patient As Payor: Workers Covered by Employer Health Insurance Spend 11.5% of Household Incomes on Premiums and Deductibles

Health Populi

Workers covered by health insurance through their companies spend 11.5% of their household income on health insurance premiums and deductibles based on The Commonwealth Fund’s latest report on employee health care costs, Trends in Employer Health Coverage, 2008-2018: Higher Costs for Workers and Their Families.

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Insured, Sick and Broke – The Latest on the State of U.S. Health-Insured Consumers’ Financial Health

Health Populi

This is what rationing health care looks like in America: one in two people in families dealing with a chronic health condition have difficulty affording paying medial bills before meeting a deductible, unexpected medical bills, co-payments for prescription drugs, co-payments for physician visits, and/or their monthly health insurance premium.

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What If Costco Designed the Prescription Drugs Sales Model?

Health Populi

Fast-forward through the 1990s and the advent of PBMs — pharmacy benefit management companies — the intermediaries managing drug benefits for health insurance plans. Today, the three largest PBMs, processing about 4 in 5 retail prescription claims, are embedded in large health insurance companies. Now: consider Costco.

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Wearable, Shareable, Virtual: The Demands of the Digital Health Consumer in 2018

Health Populi

This week at the 2018 annual HIMSS conference, telehealth is playing a mainstream role in discussions about right-sizing and right-placing healthcare. The evidence for telehealth’s tipping point is rooted in new research published today by Accenture on Patients + Doctors + Machines, Accentures’ 2018 Consumer Survey on Digital Health.