Health Insurance

Covered California’s announced 13% rate hike for health insurance rates in 2017 is going to hit consumers hard.  It’s a double whammy since California policyholders have suffered from some of the narrowest networks of doctors and hospitals in the country, allegedly as the price paid for modest premium hikes the last couple of years. Now Californians have fewer choices of doctors – less than 25% of an area’s docs in most plans – and higher premiums: the worst of all worlds.

The Department of Insurance held a hearing this morning into the proposed $37 billion merger of health insurance giants Aetna and Humana. Aetna is seeking to expand its market share the lazy way by buying up competitors instead of gaining customers the old-fashioned way: by having the best product. 

California taxpayers dodged a bullet yesterday with the passage of a high-stakes bill to help fund Medi-Cal.

Legislative Democrats and nearly a dozen Republicans approved a plan to trade existing taxes for a new tax on insurers to raise more than $1 billion in needed health care funding and preserve federal Medi-Cal matching funds.