This post comes from CCN Money. “The fight over health care overhaul is on track to be the most expensive issue ever to hit the hallways of Congress.The bill for lobbyists, television ads and political donations has topped $375 million — or enough to pay the entire insurance tab for about 30,000 families a year.

The big spenders range from drug companies, hospitals and doctor groups to organizations that advocate for unions, immigrants and retirees.

The largest chunk has gone to direct lobbying of lawmakers and other policymakers. In the first half of 2009, the health care industry spent nearly $280 million on lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.” Click here to read the rest of this article.

This post comes from the Associated Press and Google News. “A new government health insurance plan sought by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats could coexist with private insurers without driving them out of business, an analysis by nonpartisan budget experts suggests.The estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — seen as good news by Democrats — comes as leaders pushed Monday to make progress on health care overhaul before lawmakers go home for their August recess.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., says a floor vote is still possible in the next few days, and Democrats called a meeting of all their House members late Monday afternoon. In the Senate, a small group of lawmakers from both parties were resuming negotiations in search of an elusive compromise.” Click here to read the rest of this article.

This post comes from CNN.com. “at an alarming rate. If recent trends continue, the two main government programs, Medicaid and Medicare, will increase from 6 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product now to about 15 percent by 2040.

This means that, without policy changes, the United States faces enormous budget deficits, substantially higher taxes, or huge cuts in non-health spending.

No one wants higher deficits or taxes, and there is no consensus about cutting other spending. The only way to avoid some combination of these outcomes, however, is to reduce the growth rate of what we spend on health. The question, of course, is how? Click here to read the rest of this article.

This post comes from The L.A. Times. “Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington — The country’s leading health insurers Tuesday offered to end their long-standing practice of charging sick customers higher premiums, a significant concession in the face of mounting criticism of the industry in Washington.

The offer from America’s Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Assn., whose member companies cover more than 200 million people, comes as lawmakers on Capitol Hill debate a proposal to create a government-run insurance program.

t underscores the pressure the industry faces from Congress and the Obama administration as policymakers move ahead with plans to reshape the nation’s healthcare system.

The industry’s underwriting policies are widely criticized for driving millions of people into the ranks of the uninsured.” Click here to read the rest of this article.

This post comes from US News. “Last summer, Keith Blessington had just been told that he was eligible for private health insurance to replace his government-funded COBRA coverage when it ran out.

Then, the 55-year-old New Hampshire resident was diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer, and everything changed.

Although the COBRA coverage paid for most of the cost of his initial surgery, by the time he got out of the hospital having had half his stomach and eight cancerous lymph nodes removed, Blessington found himself ineligible for virtually any private health insurance, because his cancer was now a daunting preexisting condition.

Blessington is still one of the lucky ones, because he managed to secure insurance through New Hampshire’s high-risk insurance pool. However, the coverage is costly, $1,120 a month to be exact.

Just to survive while he was unable to work, Blessington borrowed $40,000 on his credit card and cashed out his 401K retirement plan.” Click here to read the rest of this article.

This post is from Market Watch. “Open Enrollment, the opportunity to review insurance and accounts benefits coverage for the upcoming calendar year, is here. For many, the ever-increasing choices can make the evaluation process complex and difficult. However, Andy Smith, Senior Partner with Cornerstone Financial Partners, believes that by not investing the time to make informed choices, workers may be leaving money on the table and putting their future at risk.

To help simplify the decisions at hand, Smith suggests starting with five basic questions.” Click here to read the rest of this article.

This posts comes from MSNBC.

“Jacqueline Ruess was lying on a bed inside a hospital in Boca Raton, Florida, still woozy from anesthesia but hoping that, maybe just this once, she’d caught a break.

She’d had laparoscopic surgery in order to examine a growth her gynecologist thought might be ovarian cancer. Ruess, who was 34 at the time, in the fall of 2001, feared that her two young boys, whose father died from a congenital heart defect three years earlier, were on the verge of losing her as well.

“It was probably the darkest week of my life since my husband passed away,” she recalls.

But as Ruess regained consciousness, she saw her own mother at her bedside, looking relieved. She began to process what she was hearing: You’re going to be OK. The growth was on the fallopian tube, not her ovary — a far less worrisome situation. Soon after, a pathology report would confirm that the tumor itself was benign.

“The only thing I could think about was my boys,” Ruess says, “and the great relief in knowing I was going to be around to raise them after all.”

But four months after Ruess’s medical crisis passed, she faced a financial one. The Insurers Administrative Corporation (IAC), the company in Phoenix that managed Ruess’s health care policy, completed what it says was a routine review of her records and discovered what it called evidence of a preexisting gynecological condition.

Because Ruess had not disclosed the symptom on her application, her insurer said she had never been eligible for coverage of gynecological problems. The result: Ruess was on the hook for the cost of her surgery, which, including doctor and hospital bills, amounted to more than $15,000.” Click here to read the rest of this article.

This post comes from Reuters News.

“Health Net Inc (HNT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) has agreed with the California Department of Insurance to pay $3.6 million in penalties and about $14 million in reimbursements for medical charges.

The company has also agreed to reinstate the healthcare coverage of 926 people whose policies it canceled after they got sick and halt improper cancelations in the future, California Department of Insurance said in a news release.

The Woodland Hills, California-based company, however, did not admit to any wrongdoing.

“While we do not necessarily agree with the California Department of Insurance’s allegations, we do believe it is time to move forward and make sure these affected individuals can obtain coverage,” Health Net Chief Executive Jay Gellert said in a statement.

The agreement allows Health Net to avoid being targeted for more enforcement action relating to potential legal violations uncovered by auditors.

Health Net may also be required to pay an additional penalty of as much as $3.6 million if a follow-up examination finds that it did not correct all deficiencies.” Click here to read the rest of this article.

This article comes from MSNBC.

” With the U.S. presidential election coming this November, health care reform is becoming a political priority in a way it hasn’t since the Clinton Administration in the early 1990s. What are the implications for health care companies payers, providers, and manufacturers? While it’s too early to say for sure, most of the solutions presented so far share underlying principles that we think enable realistic discussion.

We believe an ongoing flow of statistics underscores the current health care system’s flaws: In 2006, about 47 million Americans lacked health insurance, up 8.6 million from 2000, according to The Commonwealth Fund, a health care policy think tank. A Commonwealth study released in June 2008 noted that the number of underinsured American adults rose nearly 60% to 25 million in 2007, from 16 million in 2003. The underinsured have health coverage, but still face access and financial constraints similar to uninsured people.” Click here to read the rest of this article.

This article comes from Reuters. The United States fails on most measures of health care quality, with Americans waiting longer to see doctors and more likely to die of preventable or treatable illnesses than people in other industrialized countries, a report released on Thursday said.

Americans squander money on wasteful administrative costs, illnesses caused by medical error and inefficient use of time, the report from the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund concluded.

“We lead the world in spending. We should be expecting much more in return,” Commonwealth Fund senior vice president Cathy Schoen told reporters.

The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation, created a 100-point scorecard using 37 indicators such as health outcomes, quality, access and efficiency.

They compare the U.S. average on these to the best performing states, counties or hospitals, and to other countries. The United States scored 65 — two points lower than in 2006. Click here to read the rest of this article.