Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Health Insurance Still Plummeting, Pt.6 – The scaled-down effect.

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Related to this, but not limited to it, are the more affordable scaled-down health insurance plans. These come in many flavors and purposes. Many states , like Florida, are seeking this method of health insurance as a remedy for their many uninsured. There is major legislation on the table right now by congressmen from New Jersey and Arizona which would, effectively neutralize individual states’ rights to govern the health insurance companys’ protection standards. This is , also, one of the greatest concerns about John McCain’s presumptive health insurance proposal. Most, but not all, states currently have protective mandates. But with McCain’s proposal, all the insurance industry would have to do to escape the mandates is to register (and pay taxes) in one of the states who allow insurance companies to do anything they want. There would be no physical move involved, much like the credit-card industry has done. Then they could all scale-back as they wish and sell in any state.

The results are only being reported now, as the the effects of scaled-down health insurance have been studied over time. These have been tagged as a major contributor to newly attended ‘underinsured’ problem. Nancy Davenport-Ennis is with the Newport News, Va-based Patient Advocate Foundation and is their chief executive. This nonprofit group aids the most extreme chronic cases. These cases involve life-threatening and debilitating situations. Over three-quarters of their patients have problems with cancer of some sort. The paradox of these scaled-down health insurance plans, as Nancy explains, is "We actually found that an underinsured consumer has a tougher time getting to resources than a completely uninsured consumer."

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