Insurelane Insurance Blog

Florida legislators are considering a bill that would increase the state’s cigarette tax to $1.34 per pack. The increase would up the current 34-cent Florida cigarette tax one dollar.

If cigarette taxes are increased, it would create $1 billion in revenue for the state government. Lawmakers have indicated that most of the funding would go toward Florida’s KidCare Plan for uninsured children.

The rest of the money would go into Florida’s general revenue fund, reported the Tallahassee Sun-Sentinel.

Other positive effects of the tax, argue the bill’s advocates, include helping the fight against teenage smoking and reducing healthcare costs related to smoking.

“Every time a state has increased the tobacco tax, smoking rates have dropped. There’s no question it’ll save lives,” said Don Webster, the CEO of the American Cancer Society in Florida.

Polls have shown state voters are largely in favor of cigarette tax increase — one poll showed 79 percent support. Another interesting poll found that 71 percent of Florida residents thought cigarette taxes were actually too low. The Sunshine State has the sixth-lowest cigarette tax in the U.S.

So far, the tax increase has bipartisan support, but some Republican lawmakers are still wary.

Republican Governor Charlie Christ has said he is not in favor of raising cigarette taxes. House Speaker Marco Rubio also expressed concern that the tax was intended to pull the state out of its $3 billion budget deficit.

“Smoking, eating too much and not exercising enough is costing us trillions of dollars at the federal level in healthcare. But I don’t think it’s a way to balance our budget. The more you tax something, the less of it you’re going to get,” reasoned the Republican House speaker.

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Costs are skyrocketing in Massachusetts. From 2002 to 2006, spending on healthcare has gone up 33 percent to $62.1 billion every year, reported the Boston Globe.

Now lawmakers and health care experts are looking for any solutions to reduce state health care spending.

One big change would be to overhaul the way doctors are paid. The new system, supported by health officials, would pay doctors and hospitals on the services treated. It would also stop paying for “botched treatment” and increase payments for care improvements, wrote the Globe.

The bill, proposed by State Senate Majority Leader Therese Murray, would also cut costs by requiring health care providers to switch to electronic records in eight years, and ban gifts to doctors by drug companies.

It would also require any rate increase over 7 percent be subject to a public hearing.

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In 2006, one-third of adult residents in Idaho didn’t see a dentist, reported the Idaho Statesman. State records also show that children in the third grade had an increased number of cavities.

Health care experts say the reason so many residents aren’t getting their teeth cleaned regularly is because they have no dental insurance. It’s estimated that around 50 percent of adults and approximately 25 percent of children have no dental coverage.

Further, many people don’t realize how important dental health is to overall health. This leads to people letting years pass without going to the dentist.

“It’s all about raising people’s awareness and encouraging them to make healthy choices,” said Idaho’s highest ranking dental official, Debra James. She is also the state’s Health and Welfare’s oral health program manager.

“Every time you chew, you’re driving bacteria into the bloodstream,” said Dr. Dan Watt, DDS.

The state created the Idaho Oral Health Summit to discuss possible solutions to the dental health issue. The Summit consists of 225 dental professionals and experts, along with state officials. So far their plan is to focus on access, prevention, education, and funding.

The Summit will bring together providers, schools, and patients to talk about matters such as the preventive use of fluoride and an oral health network.

Officials guessed that a statewide plan would be done by the spring.

“We’re really trying to educate Idahoans that there’s this body [and] mouth connection,” said Lisa Reed, a representative from benefits provider, Delta Dental.

“The ultimate solution is to work as a team,” said president of Idaho State Dental Association, Dr. Tim Thompson.

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Fluoride in public water systems has long been touted as a great health initiative — helping prevent cavities and tooth decay, and improving the dental health of citizens by the millions. But only around half of the residents living in Pennsylvania have fluoridated tap water, reported the Harrisburg-Patriot News.

The Pennsylvania House Health and Human Services Committee recently approved a bill that requires all public systems to fluoridate water if they have 500 or more customers. The measure will now go to the Appropriations Committee for approval.

Most scientists and lawmakers agree that putting fluoride in tap water has big health benefits. And the Pennsylvania Dental Association is leading the push for fluoridating all public water.

“The state supports fluoridation as a preventive measure. It has been proven and it’s supported by research from the CDC, the American Dental Association and other independent researchers,” said Pennsylvania public health dentist, Dr. Howard Tolchinsky.

But not everyone supports fluoridating. One dentist from New Jersey claims that there isn’t enough evidence that say communities with fluoridated water have healthier teeth than those with no fluoride.

“If everybody wanted shinier floors, would you put floor wax in the water supply?” challenged the New Jersey dentist, wary of fluoride’s alleged health benefits.

There is, though, widespread acceptance that fluoride does help communities’ dental health.

“The cost to repair those teeth is far greater than [fluoridated water]. I’m not a doctor or a scientist, but I wouldn’t promote it if it wasn’t considered a positive public health strategy,” said executive director of the Carlisle Area Health and Wellness Foundation, Bets Clever.

It costs anywhere from 50 cents to $3 per person to fluoridate tap water depending on the size of the public system, wrote the Harrisburg-Patriot.

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The program to insure residents without coverage in Howard County, Maryland is getting good reviews from healthcare officials so far, reported the Washington Post.

The Healthy Howard Plan will eventually provide coverage for an estimated 20,000 residents who have no insurance. To start, the program will initially cover around 2,000 people. It will cost $2.8 million in the first year.

Residents are eligible for coverage if they are legal Howard County residents and have been uninsured for at least one year. The program is aimed at low-income residents, providing coverage for primary care, specialized care, hospitalization, and prescription drugs.

Healthy Howard will also assign “health coaches” to patients to help them manage their health conditions, and be diligent about preventive care.

“It’s a positive step. It’s teaching people how to take care of themselves,” said Robert N. Sheff, chairman of the board at the healthcare organization, Horizon Foundation. “They’ll utilize fewer resources from the medical community.”

But Dr. Michael E. Sullivan, a cardiologist at Howard County General Hospital, expressed concern that doctors might be wary of the program’s reimbursement system.

“The challenge is going to be to get physicians to participate,” said Dr. Sullivan. “Some physicians are more [generous] than others in this day and age where we’re all faced with declining reimbursements.”

The County Executive Ken Ulman and County Health Officer Peter Beilenson have scheduled three town hall meetings to also discuss the program with the community. The meetings will be in Ellicott City, Cooksville, and Savage.

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This week, President George W. Bush announced the overhaul of the healthcare system for veterans returning home from duty. The president’s announcement comes after he created a bipartisan commission to analyze the current care system for veterans, reported the Los Angeles Times.

Bush’s proposal will improve the quality of care for injured veterans, and create more thorough health screenings and evaluations. One requirement will be that all who receive care at a Veterans Affairs hospital will automatically be checked for post-traumatic stress disorder.

“It’s an old system, it’s an antiquated system, it’s an outdated system that needs to be changed,” said President Bush.

Under the proposal, veterans who cannot return to active duty because of their injuries will receive pensions. The Department of Veterans Affairs will provide the care, not the Pentagon.

The proposal would improve the system to provide much more comprehensive healthcare for veterans. One key recommendation from the veterans’ care commission includes assigning “recovery coordinators,” who would be responsible for helping injured servicemen and women with federal paperwork. They also proposed veterans’ health should be reassessed every three years.

In addition to healthcare, the plan will give more support for families. Payments will be given to cover losses from potential earnings, spouses and family members may be allowed up to six months unpaid leave if a soldier is seriously injured, and seriously wounded veterans may be eligible for up to 40 hours of in-home care per week.

The total cost of the new veteran’s care program will be over $30 billion per year — slightly more expensive than the old system. Some parts of this proposal can be directly implemented by the White House. Other provisions must be sent to Congress for approval.

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CommunityHealth and Erie Family Health Center are two community health clinics in Chicago, Illinois that will be offering free prescription drugs for low-income residents. Through a new program, MedAccess Chicago, the clinics will distribute free medications with the help of several pharmaceutical companies.

Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca PLC, Merck & Co., and Norvartis Pharmaceutical Corp. will donate up to $7 million in medications, reported the Chicago Tribune.

More than half of the estimated 35,000 patients that currently go to CommunityHealth and the Erie Center are uninsured. And even though they have access to care, many still cannot afford the daily medications needed to properly manage chronic health problems.

“Our goal is to remove barriers that keep our uninsured patients from filling prescriptions and create opportunities for better control of chronic conditions,” said CEO of the Erie Center, Dr. Lee Francis.

To qualify for the program, families and individuals must be uninsured and earn lower than 200% of the federal poverty level — roughly $40,000 per year for a family of four and $20,000 for individuals, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

By 2012, MedAccess Chicago hopes to fill as many as 100,000 prescriptions, said the executive director of CommunityHealth, Judith Haasis.

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Investment in a Healthy California (IHCP) is a state-sponsored program that helps provide health insurance for low-income urban families and rural families with few options available. In a PR Newswire release, Blue Cross of California announced they will invest $10.6 million in National Health Services, Inc. to increase health care access for communities in need.

National Health Services, Inc. (NHSI) provides primary care and preventive care to many farm workers in California who don’t have easy access to medical services. A large portion of Blue Cross’ investment will go toward building health and dental clinics in Rosedale and Ridgecrest, and an administration center in Shafter.

Blue Cross has also invested in various California hospitals through IHCP, including three Critical Access Hospitals and five Disproportionate Share Hospitals. These hospitals are designed to assist smaller health care facilities and community clinics get necessary financing that wouldn’t otherwise be available.

“The innovative Investment in a Healthy California Program is a unique partnership with our regulators and the IHCP advisory board to strengthen the health delivery system in our state,” said president of Blue Cross of California, Brian A. Sassi.

The $10.6 million from Blue Cross brings the total investment in IHCP to $202 million.

“Community clinics are an essential piece of the health care delivery system that are dedicated to serving low-income communities. The benefits provided by the IHCP allow these facilities to expand health services to the most at-risk populations in our state,” said IHCP advisory committee member, Kathy Lim Ko.

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Since 2000, Michigan researchers have been planning to conduct the largest children’s health study in history. The initiative, called the National Children’s Study, will monitor 100,000 children in 105 communities nationwide until they reach the age of 21.

Its main goal is to see how environmental and other factors affect children’s health and development, reported the Detroit Free Press. Specific health problems the study will concentrate on include childhood obesity, autism, diabetes, asthma, and learning disorders.

Researchers will also examine the air the children breath, the water they drink, their diets, the amount of dust in their homes, exposure to chemicals, and their mental health.

“We can anticipate beginning to learn important scientific information as early as 2011 and 2012,” said the director of the National Children’s Study, Peter Scheidt.

Researchers in Michigan will focus on Wayne County, which includes the city of Detroit, because of the county’s high rate of childhood health problems. Recruitment for participants will begin in early 2009.

Michigan State University will lead Michigan's research. They will also work with Wayne State University, the Michigan Department of Community Health, University of Michigan, Henry Ford Health System, and the Children’s Hospital of Michigan.

“This is a very important and landmark study, both nationally and for the state of Michigan,” said Dele Davies, chairman of the Department of Pediatrics and Human Development at Michigan State University.

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The Kansas Health Policy Authority (KHPA) is touring around the state to discuss possible reforms to their healthcare system. The tour has been a forum of open dialogue with Kansas residents and healthcare experts to discuss the major concerns about the system. And the KHPA is learning how they can meet their needs.

The main issues are that the healthcare system is too complicated for people to understand, there is a shortage of bilingual services, and people need to be better educated about healthcare and health insurance.

Another big problem for the current healthcare system is cost efficiency.

“In the U.S., we spend double per capita for healthcare and we are not getting the best use of our services,” said Marci Nielsen, who is the KHPA’s executive director.

After the 20-city tour makes its last stops tomorrow, the KHPA will use the suggestions and concerns they’ve heard to create plans for healthcare reform. In their reform plans, they’ll focus on simplifying and increasing healthcare access — and providing better education to help people be more responsible healthcare consumers.

“These are complicated issues that can’t happen overnight but we need to start trying,” added Nielsen.

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Wal-Mart is expanding its low-cost prescription drug program to every corner of the United States.

The program offers generic drugs at the low price of $4 for a 30-day prescription. The program was started in Florida, and Wal-Mart had planned to expand it to all 50 states by sometime in 2007. But high consumer demand has created enough confidence to expand the program to the remaining 11 states ahead of schedule.

The program has attracted both praise and criticism for its discount for 160 different generic prescription drugs. Some say that Wal-Mart has opened the door for affordable drugs on the market, and may spark competition to widen the availability of prescription drugs. Shortly after Wal-Mart announced their other program, other large retailers launched similar programs.

Critics say that while the program is helpful for many who otherwise couldn’t afford prescription drugs, the program omits brand name drugs and many other generic drugs. That means that many can’t benefit from the program because their drugs aren’t included in the discount.

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The New York Times reported last week about a new trend starting to emerge at hospitals: free basic care for uninsured patients.

Hospitals lose millions of dollars a year providing care for people who can’t pay for it. Typically, they’ve attempted to make this money by increasing costs to insured patients and by claiming losses at tax-time.

The new approach has the hospitals providing free basic care — the kind of care uninsured people usually go without. By giving people access to routine care, they hope to prevent the kind of serious health issues that uninsured patients often have when they show up at the hospital.

This routine care is often too expensive for uninsured people to pay out of their own pockets. But from the point of view of a hospital budget, this care is low-cost and easy to provide. “For most preventive efforts there is an upfront expense,” said Alan D. Aviles, president of Health and Hospitals Corporation in New York. “But over the long term it saves money.”

Officials working for Denver, Colorado’s public hospital system estimate that for every $1 spent on prenatal care for uninsured women, they save $7 in care for newborns and children.

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The International Hurricane Research Center has released its report on the “10 Most Vulnerable US Mainland Areas to Hurricanes.”

New Orleans tops the list — the levees that keep the Mississippi River are still in bad shape following least year’s disaster. Coming in at number two is Lake Okeechobee, Florida, where one of the nation’s worst hurricane disasters occurred in 1928. There are currently more than 40,000 people living next to a levee (built by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1930s) that is leaking. The levee has been called a “grave and imminent danger to the people and the environment of South Florida.”

The full list of hurricane danger zones is:

• 1. New Orleans, Louisiana
• 2. Lake Okeechobee, Florida
• 3. Florida Keys
• 4. Coastal Mississippi
• 5. Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
• 6. Galveston/Houston, Texas
• 7. Cape Hatteras, North Carolina
• 8. Eastern Long Island, New York
• 9. Wilmington, North Carolina
• 10. Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida

No matter where you live, the report is a timely reminder of how important it is to be prepared for a disaster. That includes:

• Having an evacuation plan, in case you and your family need to leave the area.
• Having supplies on hand, including food, water, and extra clothing, in case you need to wait out a storm or other disaster.
• Making sure that you home and property is insured against wind and flood damage, so that if disaster does strike, you’ll be able to get back on your feet.

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Melting ice caps? Floods? Hurricanes? The debate about global warming — and its consequences — is far from settled, but the insurance industry is starting to take sides.

Big business doesn’t usually find itself on the same side as the environmental movement. But when you’re in the business of insuring against catastrophe and property loss, climate change has a direct impact on your bottom line.

The famed insurance company Lloyds Of London recently released a report called “Climate Change: Adapt Or Bust.” While mainly a call for the insurance industry to develop new models of predicting the risk posed by weather catastrophes, the report also calls for industry-at-large to take more responsibility for its impact on the environment.

The report’s executive summary opens with the words “TOO LITTLE BUT NOT TOO LATE.” The summary goes on to say “This report focuses on adaptation but we recognise that mitigation of the risk itself (ie the reduction of CO2 emissions) is crucial.”

Lloyds isn’t alone. Global insurance broker and risk management firm, Marsh Inc., released a 30-page report called “Climate Change: Business Risks and Solutions.” American International Group, or AIG, has become the first U.S.-based insurance company to create a policy specifically about climate change. It is also in the process of creating an “Office of Environment and Climate Change.”

The debate on climate change isn’t going away. But with the multi-billion dollar insurance industry stepping into the ring, it’s about to get more interesting.

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New research is suggesting that clean teeth lead to better overall health, National Underwriter Magazine is reporting.

A research team at North Carolina University has found evidence linking gum disease to premature births. And another team at the University of Michigan has reported that having four yearly teeth cleanings — instead of the usual two — can improve blood sugar control in people with diabetes.

Healthcare professionals and insurers are approaching the findings with caution — some with downright skepticism. The links between your teeth and your overall health "are not yet clearly understood," said Dentegra spokesman Jeff Album. The Dentegra company operates the Delta Dental plans in California and other states.

If the findings hold up to scientific scrutiny, it could mean a new emphasis on dental care to improve overall health. Researchers at Columbia University found that treating gum disease reduced the cost of treating diabetes and coronary artery disease.

Insurance carrier GIGNA has already added coverage for an extra free teeth cleaning for pregnant women enrolled in its health and dental programs. Pregnant women in the CIGNA programs also get full coverage for treatment of gum disease.

As the findings become more concrete, expect to see insurers and employers offering more generous dental benefits. The relatively low price of dental care combined with the cost savings and improved well-being of good health creates a win-win situation for everyone.

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