Day: February 28, 2015

By Molly Mulebriar

The City of Santa Fe has requested proposals for stop loss insurance for their self-funded employee health plan with a proposal deadline of February 23, 2015. However, New Mexico’s Insurance Superintendent issued a regulatory bulletin the week before the proposal deadline that effectively eliminates stop loss protection as a viable option for New Mexico employers that self-fund their employee health care coverage.

The task now before the city’s insurance consultant (AON Risk Solutions) and  third party administrator (United HealthCare – UHC) is to find stop loss insurance for the plan’s July 1 effective date. According to market experts this will be a near impossibility without divine intervention.  BUCA reps. are circling city hall anticipating the coming feast.

Continue reading City of Santa Fe – In A Boat Without A Paddle?

Thanks to federal intervention in the health care system—Medicare, Medicaid, and the employer tax exclusion—hospitals have been able to charge whatever they want for their services, knowing that the average consumer has no idea how much he’s paying, because he’s paying mostly through taxes and other indirect means…………..

Accountable Care Organizations, whose explicit goal is to encourage hospitals to consolidate the provider industry, thereby gives them more leverage to charge higher prices…………

The U.S. hospital industry is crony capitalism at its finest

Continue reading Hospital Costs Explode Under ObamaCare – ACO’s A Cost Driver?