Consumer Watchdog urged Assembly member Autumn Burke (D-Los Angeles) to withdraw legislation backed by State Farm Insurance because it “will irreparably harm policyholders who seek to repair their vehicles financially and, potentially, cost many consumers their safety, and even their lives.”
Yesterday in San Francisco, Anthem VP Jay Wagner and Cigna’s Tom Richards refused to commit to price reductions for California consumers if the $54 Billion deal for Anthem to buy Cigna is approved.
In fact, Anthem and Cigna’s executives could not provide any concrete examples of how the Anthem-Cigna merger would benefit consumers at the four-hour hearing into the merger I attended at the Department of Insurance.
Did California regulators' approval of the Centene and Health Net merger give a preview of how reviews of Anthem's proposed consolidation with Cigna will go down? Let's hope not. Conditions for Health Net were a world away from what regulators will find in the Anthem-Cigna deal. (More on those hearings here.)
Inadequate physician networks and out-of-network billing have cast an ugly shadow over the expanding healthcare market as more people have access to healthcare. Next Monday, the Department of Insurance will hold a hearing on new proposed regulations covering network adequacy and out-of-network billing in emergency services.