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MarketWatch
September 18, 2008

Although fundamentals for the vast majority of life/health companies are currently sound, uncertainty continues to be widespread in terms of the future direction of the economy, real estate values, interest rates, equity markets–both domestically and globally–and liquidity. All of these factors have had an impact on life/health insurers’ balance sheet strength and operating performance.

As the federal government takes unprecedented steps to promote stability in financial markets and limit damage to the broader economy, A.M. Best notes both the political uncertainty of the upcoming Presidential election as well as the enhanced regulatory scrutiny that currently pervades the life/health industry. These issues are most prevalent across health insurance product lines, which are influenced significantly by regulation at both the federal and state levels. As a result, A.M. Best has revised the rating outlook on the health insurance industry to negative.

With employers dropping coverage, and politicians and regulators seeking ways to provide coverage for the uninsured, the individual medical market has become ultra competitive. A.M. Best has similar concerns with the small group medical market as large, national managed care companies compete despite low profit margins.

Moreover, the current economic environment is placing additional pressures on the managed care sector. The commercial market has been extremely competitive for some time with limited growth potential. Layoffs and bankruptcies will impact commercial enrollment, while cost factors could pressure employees to drop coverage. Many publicly traded managed care companies have increased their financial leverage over the past year mainly for share repurchase and acquisitions (with goodwill), all of which increase balance sheet risk. While A.M. Best acknowledges that managed care companies tend to have more liquid and conservative investment portfolios due to the short-tailed nature of the claims, the issues that have emerged on Wall Street, and in the real estate market, are expected to result in writedowns of certain investments.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/am-best-revises-rating-outlook/story.aspx?guid=%7B4190EA15-8E83-466A-8FD1-5C44D3E63F4A%7D&dist=hppr

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

When the economy goes South, and unemployment rates increase, publicly financed programs face budget constraints because of the decline in tax revenues. Think of our public education system. Publicly financed health programs (over half of all health care spending today) face similar constraints.

So we should look at the stability of the financing of health care through private health plans. This report from A.M. Best indicates that market volatility will have a negative impact on the participation in their health insurance products and on the insurers’ return on their investments.

A shift away from large employer coverage and towards individual and small group insurance products has made these markets “ultra competitive,” resulting in narrower profit margins. It is ironic that increased competition is considered to be a threat to the insurers’ business model. At the same time “enhanced regulatory scrutiny” is also a threat. It seems that the health insurance industry will have difficulties no matter whether free market or government regulation policies prevail.

In addition, a significant portion of insurers’ profits comes from their investments that have nothing to do with health care. As their investment revenues decline they must make up the difference by increasing the spread between their revenues and costs. Since their high administrative costs are relatively fixed, they must turn to increases in premiums and decreases in benefits paid. The decrease in benefits is accomplished by reducing the health benefits which are covered, and by increasing cost-sharing by the patients. Underinsurance is already a major problem, and it will expand further under current trends.

Any financial crisis would impact both publicly and privately financed programs, but the private investor-owned programs are more severely impacted. Looking at the current financial crisis, it’s clear that only our government has the capability and resources to ensure health security for all of us… forever.

By John McCain
Contingencies
September/October 2008

We can no longer afford to promise more than we can deliver. Nor can we risk misdiagnosing the problem and devising a cure that might harm the patient.

The problem is not that most Americans lack adequate health insurance. The vast majority of Americans have private insurance, and our government spends billions each year to provide even more.

Fundamental health care reform must begin with restoring control to individuals and their families as health care consumers and patients and making them the central focus of our health care system.

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

http://www.contingencies.org/septoct08/mccain.pdf

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

Let there be no doubt about John McCain’s plans for health care in America: Just as reducing the burden of government regulation of real estate lending has allowed more individuals to achieve the American dream of owning their own homes, reducing regulatory oversight of private insurers will make health care more affordable for all of us.

Many people made a lot of money in home loans while the regulators turned their backs. Of course, those people have walked away with their siphoned-off money in hand, and left us with a market that has destroyed the finances of individuals and shattered their dreams of home ownership. The magnitude of the crisis is so great that the government had to step in and use our tax dollars to prevent the collapse of the economy.

John McCain now wants the regulators to turn their backs on the private insurance industry. By selling us insurance products that are affordable, many people will make a lot of money. When those underinsurance products fail to protect us from financial hardship whenever we need heath care, our personal finances will collapse, and the financing of the health care industry will be disrupted, resulting in the impending collapse of the health care delivery system. By then, those who profited will have walked away with their siphoned-off money in hand, leaving us with a health care crisis that only the government will be able to repair, using our tax dollars to prevent the collapse of our health care system.

Just as a robust deregulated market in sub-prime lending and mortgage-backed securities was not the solution to expand home ownership to more Americans, a robust deregulated market in private health underinsurance plans can never make health care affordable for those who need it.

Barack Obama understands that if private insurance plans are to fulfill their function of making health care affordable, then the market must be tightly regulated, and underinsurance products must be prohibited. He also understands that private plans that actually work are no longer affordable for the majority of Americans. That is why he decided against mandating universal health care coverage; you can’t buy a plan if you don’t have the money to pay for it.

Neither a market of deregulated private plans nor a market of tightly-regulated private plans will work. Continuing to rely on the private insurance market will compound the crisis in health care financing, eventually forcing a government buyout of the system. Instead of waiting for more pain, suffering, financial hardship, and even death, let’s adopt a system that actually would make health care affordable for all of us: a single payer national health program.

Isn’t prevention better than a salvage operation?

By William R. Brody, MD, PhD, president of the Johns Hopkins University
San Francisco Chronicle
September 18, 2008

I favor community-rated health insurance – that is, one big pool to spread and share risk with no cherry picking allowed.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/17/EDA112VONV.DTL

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

There could not be a more explicit endorsement of social insurance, especially significant since it comes from one of the nation’s more important health care leaders. Once we all agree that we need one big risk pool to spread and share risk, the remaining efforts in health care reform would be limited to working out the details of the mechanics of funding and administering that pool.

That is not to say that it will be easy. We will still be debating whether or not we will dismiss the private insurance industry and replace it with a single payer universal health program. If we continue to use the private insurance industry, it will require massive transformation into a model similar to the European plans using non-profit private insurers, a change that investor-owned insurers surely will resist to the death of their corporations (what a pleasant fantasy). Instead of trying to totally change the mission and structure of U.S.-style insurers, it would be easier to replace them with our own public Medicare-like model.

Once we accept the concept of a single, equitable risk pool for everyone, then we can all move forward with the comparatively simple task of crafting the mechanics of the financing system. We really can do it.

Kaiser Family Foundation
September 17, 2008

Options for Covering the Uninsured

1. Build on the current system:
Strengthen the employer-based system
Expand public coverage by building on Medicaid and SCHIP
Create new group insurance options for individuals and businesses

2. Revise the sponsorship and financing of health coverage through the tax system

3. Adopt a single-payer plan

http://www.kff.org/uninsured/h08_7813.cfm

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

Listening to the national dialogue on health financing reform, you would think that we have only two options: 1) Don’t start from scratch with a better program, but build on the current system (Obama), or 2) Reform the tax code to shift incentives for purchasing insurance from employers to individuals (McCain). Replacing our dysfunctional financing system with a single payer national health program, if even mentioned, is immediately dismissed from the dialogue.

As an example, yesterday Health Affairs released three new articles commenting on the reform proposals. An excellent article by Buchmueller et al explained why the McCain proposal would be relatively ineffective in expanding coverage to more individuals and would likely result in a deterioration of the effectiveness of health plans. An article by Antos et al explained why the Obama proposal will fail to slow the escalation in health care costs, besides falling short on universal coverage.

The third Health Affairs article should have been on how single payer would control costs while providing comprehensive coverage for everyone. It wasn’t. Instead it was an article by Mark “Moral Hazard” Pauly describing a compromise model incorporating features of the McCain and Obama plans. Although the Buchmueller and Antos articles were covered extensively by the media, I couldn’t help but notice that the Pauly article was ignored, and quite appropriately so.

Kaiser Family Foundation is precisely right. There are three options for reform. We know that only one of them will work: single payer. A discussion of the McCain and Obama plans is not complete without including an explanation of the effectiveness of single payer. It’s our job to be sure that it is included.

Covering the Uninsured: Options for Reform

Kaiser Family Foundation
September 17, 2008

Options for Covering the Uninsured

1. Build on the current system:
Strengthen the employer-based system
Expand public coverage by building on Medicaid and SCHIP
Create new group insurance options for individuals and businesses

2. Revise the sponsorship and financing of health coverage through the tax system

3. Adopt a single-payer plan

http://www.kff.org/uninsured/h08_7813.cfm

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

Listening to the national dialogue on health financing reform, you would think that we have only two options: 1) Don’t start from scratch with a better program, but build on the current system (Obama), or 2) Reform the tax code to shift incentives for purchasing insurance from employers to individuals (McCain). Replacing our dysfunctional financing system with a single payer national health program, if even mentioned, is immediately dismissed from the dialogue.

As an example, yesterday Health Affairs released three new articles commenting on the reform proposals. An excellent article by Buchmueller et al explained why the McCain proposal would be relatively ineffective in expanding coverage to more individuals and would likely result in a deterioration of the effectiveness of health plans. An article by Antos et al explained why the Obama proposal will fail to slow the escalation in health care costs, besides falling short on universal coverage.

The third Health Affairs article should have been on how single payer would control costs while providing comprehensive coverage for everyone. It wasn’t. Instead it was an article by Mark “Moral Hazard” Pauly describing a compromise model incorporating features of the McCain and Obama plans. Although the Buchmueller and Antos articles were covered extensively by the media, I couldn’t help but notice that the Pauly article was ignored, and quite appropriately so.

Kaiser Family Foundation is precisely right. There are three options for reform. We know that only one of them will work: single payer. A discussion of the McCain and Obama plans is not complete without including an explanation of the effectiveness of single payer. It’s our job to be sure that it is included.

California Physician
September 15, 2008

Physicians contracted with Blue Cross of California were recently notified of the insurer’s intent to amend its Prudent Buyer contract to include Anthem’s Select PPO product, effective January 1, 2009.

The addendum in question requires contracted physicians to always refer Anthem Select PPO Members to other participating Select PPO providers, unless they have obtained authorization to refer out of network. Physicians should be aware that the underlying Prudent Buyer contract authorizes Blue Cross to unilaterally lower the physicians’ fee schedule as a penalty for referring to out of network providers. For this reason, it is important for physicians to determine if colleagues you frequently refer to and those who refer to you participate in the Select PPO network.

http://www.calphys.org/html/cc763.asp

Addendum:
http://www.calphys.org/assets/applets/bc_addendum_091508.pdf

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

Those supporting health care reform based on the model of private health plans competing in the marketplace have looked to Blue Cross of California (BCC) as the nation’s leader in innovative market solutions. BCC has been very effective in providing insurance products with competitive premiums by using these innovations to limit what is paid for health care benefits, in an environment of ever-increasing health care costs.

By far the most important innovation was to establish preferred provider lists of physicians and hospitals that agreed to accept contracted reimbursement rates. The providers accepted lower rates, and patients were financially penalized if they used providers outside of the contracted networks. No attempt will be made to address here the many other innovations that allowed BCC to reduce what it pays for health care, but more does need to be said about this new innovation in its preferred provider networks.

Largely because of its competitive premiums made possible by its leverage in being able to sign up physicians and hospitals in its Prudent Buyer PPO plans, BCC has been one of the most successful programs in California, success being defined from a business perspective. Its success has been so great that it is now in a position to be able to make itself its own competitor, but, as we’ll see this is not competition that is designed to benefit the patient/consumer, but rather to benefit the Anthem/WellPoint shareholders of which BCC is a subsidiary.

In addition to its well established Prudent Buyer PPO, it now also has established Anthem Select PPO, a product designed to be more competitive by offering even lower premiums. The Anthem Select PPO has established a separate contract with a much smaller number of physicians and hospitals who have agree to even lower reimbursement rates (presumably lower, though that is proprietary information). Besides lower rates, BCC also benefits by making access more difficult for patients by sharply limiting the number of Select providers available.

Patients may not realize it, but they are penalized when they continue to use their Blue Cross Prudent Buyer providers if those providers have not also signed up to be part of Anthem Select PPO. They may think they have access to the Prudent Buyer PPO list, but if the corner of their card says “A Select Network Product,” they are restricted to a much more limited choice if they expect to receive the full benefits of their plan (that is, full underinsurance benefits).

The new BCC innovation spelled out in the addendum and in the underlying Prudent Buyer contract establishes financial penalties for physicians who continue to refer to their established Prudent Buyer colleagues and hospitals without first checking to be certain that they are on the much more exclusive Anthem Select PPO list.

BCC has provided a potential out. Physicians can obtain prior authorization to refer Select patients to the Prudent Buyer providers. But talk about abusive administrative excesses! BCC is requiring the burdensome prior authorization process merely to cross refer within its own two artificially segregated networks!

The process is hardly transparent. Most physicians and their staff members will not notice “A Select Network Product” on the corner of the card. They will make the Prudent Buyer referrals as usual. When the claim is paid, the disallowed amount will be adjusted off, without the staff realizing that the adjustment is greater than it would have been had a referral been made within the more restricted Select list. The patient will receive a statement of benefits with a larger amount listed as their own responsibility, not realizing that they are being penalized for using a Prudent Buyer provider who did not also have a Select contract.

Thus Blue Cross of California has set up within its own Prudent Buyer program two separate PPO lists that it uses to play against each other for the purpose of cheating the patient, cheating the physician, and cheating the hospital. Only the shareholders benefit.

Some may feel that “cheat” is too strong of a word, but cheating is depriving by trickery, and that is exactly what BCC is doing.

For those who still believe that we can patch together reform by using private insurance plans, please read John Geyman’s “Do Not Resuscitate: Why the Health Insurance Industry Is Dying, and How We Must Replace It” (Common Courage Press).