Retail Health Insurance Stores

June 20th, 2011

Buy Health Insurance at the Mall

You can buy clothes, shoes and towels in the stores at most shopping malls and you also can pick up some health insurance. Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield is opening its eighth Highmark direct retail store in Pennsylvania. It also joins dozens of other stores operated by other health insurance companies across the country in Maryland, South Carolina, Florida, Colorado and other states.

Added Value for Shoppers

Inside the stores, customers can do their own research on plans as well as talk to an agent. The store will have an area where consumers can check their height, weight and blood pressure, as well as undergo other self-administered health assessments.

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Tags: Health Insurance, Stores

Individual Health Insurance Reform Breaking News

February 12th, 2011

By any measure, last week was a big one for the future of individual health insurance reform. It started with a federal judge in Florida ruling the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) unconstitutional. Just two days later the U.S. Senate, unlike the House, voted down an effort to repeal the not-quite-one-year-old law. But a vote in the North Carolina House last week illustrates that the states will be just as important a battleground for health care reform over the next couple of years. North Carolina House members voted to try to block the requirement that citizens buy health insurance coverage. And, Florida has announced it will cease implementation of the health care law until the lawsuits are decided — likely by the U.S. S

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Tags: Health Insurance, Health Insurance Reform, Insurance Reform, Reform

Individual Health Insurance Legislative Update January

January 12th, 2011

The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has released a proposed regulation that would institute a new review process for requests by individual health insurance companies for rate increases.

The proposed rule, announced Dec. 20, 2010, would institute a new review process that may be administered by states if HHS determines that they have an “effective” rate review program, or by HHS if a state process is not considered effective. HHS expects to implement the new process by July 2011.

HHS proposes that this process become effective for rates filed or in use on or after July 1, 2011, in the individual health insurance and small group markets. Thi

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Tags: Health Insurance, Individual Health, Individual Health Insurance, Insurance

Individual Texas Health Insurance Providers

December 21st, 2010

In Texas health insurance, a recently released joint study by the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) and the Department of Insurance that examines the consequences of the state losing Medicaid funding leaves little doubt that Medicaid withdrawal would harm the state economically. It would also deprive poor, elderly and disabled people of access to health care, likely raise property taxes, rob the state of tax revenue, and lead to increases in insurance premiums. Several conservative Republicans, including Gov. Rick Perry, had broached the idea of Texas opting out of Medicaid to help solve the state’s budget gap. That is likely to change, given the report’s conclusion that Medicaid withdrawal could result in 2.6 million Texans becoming uninsured. The

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Tags: Health Insurance, Insurance, Texas Health, Texas Health Insurance