National Nurses United

NewsBriefs_Mar RAD's changes Korea back 4/2/10 6:11 PM Page 5 increases. "But we believe this was the most prudent choice, given the rising cost of care and the problems caused by many younger and healthier policyholders dropping or reducing their coverage during tough economic times." Yet studies show insurance companies continue to reap healthy profits while denying and restricting care for consumers. A report on managed care released this month by Goldman Sachs described the situation in the insurance industry as "a rising tide lifting all boats" as "health reform uncertainty recedes." The paper cited comments from a well-known broker that prices are up and competition is down, and recommended investing in the industry, especially in large carriers like United Health and Cigna that enjoy virtual monopolies in their coverage areas. A recent study by National Nurses United's research arm, the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, found that California's largest insurers rejected on average a quarter of all claims last year. "As nurses, we see healthcare being denied on a daily basis," National Nurses United Secretary-Treasurer Martha Kuhl, RN said of the findings. "There is nothing worse as a nurse than seeing a parent facing a child with a deadly disease who is being denied care and having to scramble to get care for their child." The Obama administration recently proposed but failed to add a provision in health reform legislation that would create a new federal Health Insurance Rate Authority with the power to set limits on health plan prices. Administration officials say they will still push for federal regulation of premiums, but nurses and other activists are not waiting for the administration and Congressional Democrats to act. At the press conference announcing the Fellers' lawsuit, Consumer Watchdog—a consumer rights group—and the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee said they will mount an effort to pass legislation allowing the state to regulate health insurance prices, just as it does for the auto insurance industry. "There is a consumer revolt in this state," said NNU Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro. "There is human suffering going on in the hospitals while the insurance industry is living high off the hog, and nurses can't take it anymore." —Felicia Mello Revolt Brewing Against Health Insurance Industry NATIONAL W hen mary and Gordon Feller's 26-year-old daughter moved back in with them because she had developed cancer and was struggling to pay her medical bills, they thought the family's health insurance problems couldn't get any worse. They were wrong. Between 2009 and 2010, the Fellers' insurer, Anthem Blue Cross, raised the rates on their own policy by 80 percent, to over $1600 per month. The rate increase left the Fellers paying more for health insurance than they do for the mortgage on their home in San Rafael, Calif.—and mad enough to sue Anthem Blue Cross, saying the company violated state law by imposing steep rate hikes on consumers in an attempt to force them into different, less-comprehensive plans. "We are seeing a system that bankrupts Americans," said Mary Feller in a March 2 press conference announcing the lawsuit. "Every American is one major illness away from bankruptcy." Like many self-employed Americans— Mary works as a freelance journalist and her husband as an environmental consultant— the Fellers find themselves at the mercy of a MARCH 2010 largely unregulated individual insurance market, where coverage is difficult to find and maintain and prices can skyrocket overnight. Insurance industry excesses are causing widespread outrage in America, and activists frustrated by the federal government's inaction are mounting their own campaigns to rein in price gouging and denials of care. Anthem Blue Cross's rate hikes for hundreds of thousands of individual policyholders in California set off a national controversy, forcing the company to agree they would delay the increases while the state's insurance commissioner investigates whether they are justified. In Maine, Anthem and another insurance company are proposing increases of over 20 percent for individual policyholders. Blue Cross Blue Shield asked regulators in Michigan for permission to boost individual plan premiums by 56 percent in 2009, but settled for 22 percent under pressure from the state's attorney general. About half of states— including Maine and Michigan—have laws allowing regulators to approve or deny rate increases; the rest, like California, do not. Insurance companies claim the tough economy has forced them to raise rates. "Raising our premiums was not something we wanted to do," Angela Braly, president of Anthem's parent company, WellPoint, testified at a Congressional hearing on the rate W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N AT I O N A L N U R S E 5

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