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 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.
Anthem has declined to say how many of its 800,000 individual policyholders in California are being affected by the hike.
But Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius demanded specifics in a sternly worded letter.
WellPoint Inc. chief financial officer Wayne DeVeydt said President Obama’s Federal Trade Commission is unlikely to approve
mergers among the biggest insurers.
WellPoint and other health insurers were profitable in 2009, but the lingering unemployment problem is dampening the outlook
for this year.
Doctors are pushing again to strengthen their hands in contract negotiations with health insurers, especially market leader
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
The long-term outlook for health care reform is uncertain, but many analysts are expecting big health insurers like Indianapolis-based
WellPoint to benefit in 2010.
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Indiana is doling out $3.1 million to Indianapolis-area doctors—its first payments
based on a local quality measuring system.
The Senate health care committee is investigating how health insurers, including Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., price
the coverage they sell to small businesses.
Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc.’s Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield subsidiary claimed 42.5 percent of central Indiana residents
covered by private health insurance
this year, up from 35-percent last year, according to a market research firm.
WellPoint Inc.’s third-quarter profits soared above analysts’ expectations, but the insurer remains cautious in the face of
the flu and high unemployment.
WellPoint Inc.’s third-quarter profits fell 11 percent, the company reported this morning, but still soared above analysts’ expectations.
The health insurance industry’s sudden counterpunch to the Senate version of health reform echoed in Indiana and
opened a key issue for the rest of the debate: Will covering half of the country’s uninsured mean raising premiums for
the 85 percent of Americans who already have insurance?
The insurance industry sharply escalated its criticism of the Senate health care bill Sunday, charging that the legislation
would shift costs to privately insured people, raising the price of a typical policy by hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars
annually.
The St. Francis hospital system has finalized a multiyear agreement with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Indiana, ending
a months-long dispute over insurance-reimbursement costs, the parties said yesterday.
The St. Francis hospital system has reached a tentative contract agreement with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Indiana,
ending a disagreement over insurance reimbursement costs, the parties said today.
Despite a year when it made doctors around the state boil with frustration, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield still outscored most of its peers in a customer satisfaction rating.
Thanks to a $45,390 grant from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield,
the Central Indiana Council on Aging will offer seniors more information and support via its Web site.
The insurance industry and [Indiana] Chamber of Commerce are providing misleading and untruthful statements to employers and
their insured members about assignment of benefits.
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s growing market dominance in Indiana is sparking a backlash from doctors who plan to push
a bill this year in the Indiana General Assembly that would allow physicians to reject patients covered by massive health
insurer.
