Leave the poor insureds alone! Hasn't there been enough bad press lately with the ex-head honcho at Wellpoint not being good at extra marital affairs? Now, it was announced today that next week, new payment schedules for services will be released to the medical community that puts things more in line with Medicare. Hey, wait a minute - I am not 65 years old (no offense to those that are) and I am not a Medicare recipient. I am a younger person with a family that contributes a significant amount of money each month towards the cost of my coverage. As I look at it, I have contributed more in the form of contributions that I have ever received in the form of benefits - but who is really keeping track?
Now we have physicians once again threatening to leave networks and/or make patients come up with the difference. What is all this based on? Group health rates continue to clip along at 12-15% each year. Pharmacy trend has come down due to the availability of generic substitutes and the fact that most plans do not cover anything experimental or disease reversing (that might be cost effective in the long run for crying out loud!) Why the need to continue to squeeze the doctor? They can't really practice medicine any longer - the carriers have seen to that. With the Wellpoint stock prices continuing to be healthy and all of those business trips that at least the cheating CEO got to go on with his various girlfriends, then I think Blue Cross could find some additional budget dollars somewhere - besides the doctors.
All this does is leave the insured in the middle, doctors complaining that they can't practice medicine, and employers having to take the brunt from disgruntled employees. Those three things are not good. Is Blue Cross' action justified? Well, we all hope there are better indicators than Medicare payments to support their actions.
Monday, July 23, 2007
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