Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Fla. Health Insurance Flops Fast, Pt.2 – Health Flex and Health Flop plans.

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On the marketplace, the stripped-down $150 health insurance premium with its bare-bones benefits, high deductibles and high out-of-pocket expenses, including low limits on coverage, the plan doesn’t sell. Even the poor who couldn’t afford any more that $150 for health insurance weren’t interested. Even if protective mandates would apply, pre-existing conditions weren’t included at any price. But with the protective mandates gone, many other things weren’t covered, that other health insurance carriers must cover by law. There is little to no help with emergency room visits and hospital stays.

But even that’s not the real kicker. The real kicker is that the health insurance providers themselves are only lukewarm about the plan. The deadline for health insurance providers to submit proposals is due next week at the Agency for Health Care Administration and so far, no one has signed up. Some of the large health insurance providers like Humana are showing little interest.

The Naples Daily News has reported being informed by a Humana spokesperson, that Humana is not interested in bidding. They already have a low-budget health insurance plan of their own. They also shared that they hold little confidence in the success of ‘Cover Florida’ in covering the huge population who currently have no health insurance.

To boot, something that is not being publicized is the fact that Florida already has a similar plan in place called the Health Flex program which has already been deemed a failure. Even so, it has shown more success than the new Cover Florida health insurance plan has. After six years, it has managed to draw only about 2,300 people, predominantly from only 6 counties. The main reason for its better success is because of the subsidies. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the subsidies to help the working poor make all the difference. This very key element is totally absent in Gov. Crist’s new plan.