WellPoint’s health insurance rate hike spurs legislative inquiry
The furor over WellPoint Inc.’s premium hikes have migrated from California to Indiana, where state lawmakers held a
high-profile hearing.
The furor over WellPoint Inc.’s premium hikes have migrated from California to Indiana, where state lawmakers held a
high-profile hearing.
The Indianapolis-based service organization has 239,000 adult members, down 26 percent from the 1992 peak of 324,727.
In Indiana, one institution rife with nepotism and political favoritism stubbornly persists:
township government and, more particularly, its delivery of emergency poor relief.
Mass transit plans are doomed to be ignored because no local government, and certainly
not the Indiana General Assembly, is interested in transportation.
What has emerged as the largest local gathering to discuss green building technologies will meet March 10-11 at the Indianapolis
Museum of Art.
A survey by J.D. Power and Associates has Indianapolis International Airport tops among 64 major airports in the country when
it comes to overall passenger satisfaction.
Big name speakers coming to central Indiana.
Congressman Andre Carson will make remarks Thursday during a public chastising of Indianapolis-based health insurer for 21-percent rate
hike on individuals.
Three WellPoint executives will be on hand Wednesday morning to answer questions about premium increases on its individual
policies, which have risen as high as 39 percent this year.
The Indianapolis-based insurer, preparing for Congressional testimony on proposed premium increases in California, says its
earnings forecast is now less clear.
Sen. Evan Bayh’s decision not to seek a third term left Indiana Democrats on Monday scrambling to identify a general election
candidate while grappling with the loss of their most reliable vote-getter and the only party member to win a statewide office
in the past decade.
The Indiana Clinic, launched about a year ago, has signed 412 physicians as employees, and is still working
toward a goal of as many as 1,500 by 2011. The clinic, a joint venture of Clarian Health and the Indiana University
School of Medicine, is headed by Dr. John Fitzgerald. He discussed the progress.
Marian University’s planned medical school is one of two dozen nationally, but budget cuts are forcing Indiana University to retreat
on enrollment expansion.
Tired of partisan politics, Sen. Evan Bayh told a standing-room-only crowd at an Indianapolis news conference Monday afternoon
that he will
eschew reelection and wants to “serve society in another way.”
Bill Polian’s son, Chris, has quietly worked his way up through the ranks of the Indianapolis Colts’ front office. If he’s
to become the team’s next president, it’s time for him to step out of the shadows.
U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh has a news conference scheduled for 2 p.m. at IUPUI’s
University
Place Conference Center and Hotel, where he will announce that he won’t run for re-election. "I do not love
Congress," he said in a prepared statement.
Individual insurance rate hikes like those recently planned for WellPoint Inc.’s California customers might be unlikely to
spread to those covered through their employers. But such hikes will affect a huge number of Americans — the 46 million
with no insurance at all.
The planned rate increase, which state officials estimated would affect about 700,000 customers, averaged 25 percent and would have been as high as 39 percent for some.
The firestorm created this week by Indianapolis-based health insurer WellPoint’s spike in premiums could resurrect some parts
of
the languishing health reform bills.