‘CBS Evening News': Correspondent Jim Axelrod Investigates Fraud | Variety

In the first part of a two-night report, CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod discovers that American taxpayers are spending millions of dollars on questionable medications for military personnel and veterans. The creams, which are touted as having the ability to soothe pain and scars, are marketed directly to military personnel, and dozens of websites advertise them as low-cost cure-alls for service members’ wounds and pain.

The catch, Axelrod finds, is that the medicines aren’t so cheap. Major General Richard Thomas, who oversees the military health benefit system Tricare, tells him the agency is on track to spend more than $2 billion in taxpayer funds in 2015 on the dubious prescriptions.

Axelrod has spent much time covering the rise of so-called “pharmaceutical compounding,” in which drugs are made for specific patients’ needs, sometimes by an outsourced pharmacy operation that may not be regulated as much as a hospital facility.



 


‘CBS Evening News': Correspondent Jim Axelrod Investigates Fraud | Variety

Special Investigation: How Insurers Are Hiding Obamacare Benefits From Customers

Moral of this story "Don't just take what your insurance company says, make sure you shop around. You have the right to buy any plan inside the new exchange or in the outside market,,," Use your heads people, if your insurance company tells you "buy now" go look it up for yourself. When you shop for a car do you buy the first one you see, or do you shop around for the best price, the best fit for your money? No! When buying a house (or renting for that matter), do you plop a deposit down when you walk through the front door the first time? No!

Across the country, insurance companies have sent misleading letters to consumers, trying to lock them into the companies' own, sometimes more expensive health insurance plans rather than let them shop for insurance and tax credits on the Obamacare marketplaces -- which could lead to people like Donna spending thousands more for insurance than the law intended. In some cases, mentions of the marketplace in those letters are relegated to a mere footnote, which can be easily overlooked.

The extreme lengths to which some insurance companies are going to hold on to existing customers at higher price, as the Affordable Care Act fundamentally re-orders the individual insurance market, has caught the attention of state insurance regulators.

The insurance companies argue that it's simply capitalism at work. But regulators don't see it that way. By warning customers that their health insurance plans are being canceled as a result of Obamacare and urging them to secure new insurance plans before the Obamacare launched on Oct. 1, these insurers put their customers at risk of enrolling in plans that were not as good or as affordable as what they could buy on the marketplaces.

[,,,]

After receiving the letter, which you can read here, some customers were badgered through phone calls to make a decision, Clark said. Of the 6,500 people who received a letter, 2,200 actually responded and gave the company their answer before they had a chance to look at what the Kentucky marketplace had to offer.

But Clark's office soon stepped in. They fined Humana $65,000 for the "misleading" information, and the 2,200 respondents were released from their obligation to Humana and freed to shop for insurance through the Obamacare marketplace starting Oct. 1.

The most troubling part of the Humana case is that the company was pushing customers into a Humana insurance plan that was more expensive than the plan Humana was selling on the Obamacare marketplace, without the financial help available under Obamcare.

Special Investigation: How Insurers Are Hiding Obamacare Benefits From Customers

Health Insurers Threaten To Increase Premiums, Even As Profits Soar | ThinkProgress

Some of the nation’s largest health insurance companies are warning investors that they’ll raise insurance premiums by as much as 116 percent next year, as the coverage expansion provisions in the Affordable Care Act go into effect and millions of uninsured Americans begin purchasing coverage.

The threats of premium increases come as the industry is experiencing record profits and are part of a well-coordinated publicity campaign to alarm Americans about the cost of coverage, while downplaying mechanisms in the law that will cushion them from rate shock. The effort comes as insurers seek more favorable regulatory changes that would, in part, allow companies to charge older people more for coverage.

[,,,]
Insurers, meanwhile, are already seeing impressive profits. UnitedHealth, for instance, “had a particularly strong past year, with net income of $5.1 billion, up by 11% from the previous year” and Aetna is similarly beating revenue expectations. A July 2010 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers concluded that the law’s state-based health care exchanges provide private insurers with a lucrative new market in which they stand to gain up to $200 billion in revenue by 2019.

Health Insurers Threaten To Increase Premiums, Even As Profits Soar | ThinkProgress