MRMIP Will Not Be Used For Risk Pool

Today the CA Governor announced that California will not use the MRMIP program as the temporary high risk pool for uninsurable California residents.

Instead, MRMIP will continue to operate alongside the federal risk program to be established by HHS in the next few months.

Stay tuned for more details on the temporary risk pool and how to enroll. Remember, the federal risk pool is a temporary program to 2014 to help cover those who cannot obtain private health insurance and have been without insurance coverage for six months or longer.

MRMIP is a California state risk program for CA residents who are unable to obtain private health insurance. The current waiting list for MRMIP enrollment is 3-4 months from application submission.

Anthem Fights Back (Finally!)

On Thursday, a "reporter" at Reuters wrote a story about Anthem/Wellpoint deliberately rescinding health insurance policies on women who developed breast cancer. The article, which was then rebroadcast by other media, is full of factual errors (one of the women was not even insured by Anthem/Wellpoint and another's name was mispelled throughout the article). The media "report" even caused HHS Secretary Sebelius to fire off a nasty letter to Angela Braly (CEO Wellpoint/Anthem).

After getting beaten up over the last few months and being portrayed as an evil cross between Attila The Hun and Adolf Hitler, Anthem finally is fighting back against this kind of lazy and inaccurate "journalism".

Anthem Response to Reuters Article

Anthem Response to HHS Sebelius' Letter

It gets better, folks. The url for the original story is no longer active and the "corrected" story (minus the woman who was not even a Wellpoint/Anthem insured) is available here. Here's the top quote on the "revised" article:

Corrected: WellPoint routinely targets breast cancer patients(Removes all references to Robin Beaton in first paragraph and throughout to reflect that the insurance company that canceled her policy was not a WellPoint subsidiary)

This Is What Happens When You Don't Read The Bill!

I guess someone forgot to tell the administration and those who voted for health insurance reform to actually read the bill.

The current bill signed into law yesterday does not, in fact, provide guaranteed-issue health insurance coverage from children this year, sort of.

I assume this will be fixed but we will have to wait and see.

Gap in law for children's healthcare protection

Anthem Answers Sebelius

Anthem President and CEO of Consumer Business, Brian Sassi, addressed his response to Ms. Sebelius regarding her inquiry concerning Anthem rate increases in California.

Click here to read Mr. Sassi's letter