In The News: California Health Insurance (Archive)

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June 29th, 2011:

Should California Stop Having Two Health Insurance Regulators?

California currently has two systems in place to regulate health insurance.  Many are saying that this is confusing to the consumer and not the best use of taxpayer money.  The system in place has an insurance commissioner and a separate agency appointed by the governor.  The issue with this divided approach is that the different departments might not always agree on health insurance issues.  Moreover, since health insurance premiums have been rising steadily over the past 10 years, management and insurance regulation is more important than ever.   

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June 21st, 2011:

Should State Regulate Health Insurance Premiums?

About 23 years ago, California voters decided that the state should have more control over the health insurance industry.  Now more recently, legislation is being proposed to give California even more authority over the health insurance industry and the costs associated with it.  A measure proposed by Mike Feuer, AB 52, is trying to give more authority either to the state insurance commissioner in California or the Department of Managed Health Care to reject excessive health insurance premium rate hikes. 

Currently, the state commissioner does have authority to reject excessive rate hikes in other insurance industries such as automobile insurance.  Health insurance premiums have increased over 100% over the past 10 years, state commissioners should be given some type of increased authority to control these excessive premium rate hikes.   

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June 15th, 2011:

CalPERS Plans Health Premium Hike Of 4%

CalPERS, which currently covers about 1.3 million consumers in America, is planning an average rate increase of about 4.1 percent for its current members.  The reason why CalPERS rate fluctuations are so closely monitored is because it is usually a good indication of where health insurance rates will be going in the near future.

Last year, CalPERS raised their health insurance premiums by more than 9 percent, they have made huge efforts to help slow this expensive trend.  A driving factor for the increase in rates is the utilization of health care services.  Although it slowed from the previous year which is why it went from 9 percent to 4 percent, CalPERS still could not avoid the health insurance premium increase.    

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June 9th, 2011:

California Health Insurer Giving Money Back To Customers

It has been reported that many Blue Shield of California customers will see a 2.5% decrease in their health insurance premiums this year.  The California health insurer says they plan to save policy holders about $167 million this year.  The money will be distributed in two ways, one for the fully-insured and then another for the partially-insured.  The fully-insured members will get a 30% discount on their health insurance premiums, while the partially-insured will get about a 10% discount on their next statement. 

Blue Shield of California announced that they will be setting a goal to earn a profit of 2 cents of every dollar received.  Any amount above that 2 cents will be returned to its customers and community.  Currently, Blue Shield of California has 3.3 million members in California.

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