Kreidler meets with President Obama and insurers

Washington state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler on Tuesday attended a White House meeting between President Barack Obama, cabinet members and about a dozen insurance company CEOs.
“President Obama certainly made one thing clear: Regardless of what you may hear from some people, the federal health care reform law will not be repealed,” said Kreidler. (For a timeline of what takes effect when, please see our Health Care Reform web pages.)

Kreidler was one of six state insurance commissioners at the private meeting, which was followed by a presidential speech about progress in implementing the health reform law.
“The president delivered a clear message to health insurers not to use these reforms as a way to artificially hike their rates,” said Kreidler. “And to make sure that doesn’t happen, he’s offering grants to state insurance departments, which scrutinize rate increases.”

For more details, please click here.

Washington man charged with insurance fraud; claimed his $33k collection of neckties was stolen

A Lynnwood, Wash. man has been charged with insurance fraud after claiming that car thieves had made off with his $33,000 collection of silk neckties.

Carlton H. Wopperer, 49, is scheduled to be arraigned on July 6, 2010 in Snohomish County Superior Court on two counts of insurance fraud.


Three times in 9 years, he claimed, thieves had stolen his collection of 212 silk neckties from his vehicle. But an investigation revealed that Wopperer had returned many of the ties within minutes of buying them.

“You can’t return a product, keep the receipt, and then claim that the product was stolen. That’s classic insurance fraud,” said Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler. “And insurance fraud drives up the cost of premiums for everyone else.”

For more details on the case, please click here.
 
To report staged accidents, faked injuries, double-billing of insurers or other insurance fraud in Washington state, call the insurance commissioner’s Special Investigations Unit at (360) 586-2566 or email them at contactSIU@oic.wa.gov.

To report suspicious health insurance offers, Medicare fraud, or problems with agents or brokers, see http://www.insurance.wa.gov/fraud/report-fraud.shtml.

New and improved: An insurance "consumer toolbox"

We've recently improved our consumer page, which now has one-stop shopping for things like:
-Checking on an agent's license
-Seeing how financially healthy your health insurer is
-and comparing the number of complaints we get about each insurer.

Consumer Direct Warranty Services in the news again

California's insurance commissioner, Steve Poizner, today ordered two California men and several corporations to stop operating unlicensed insurance companies and "using deceptive and illegal telemarketing."

The order names Robert Lewis Chapman, James C. Sletner, and several corporations they own and manage, including SafeData Management Services Inc., Warranty Administration Services, Inc., Consumer Direct Warranty Services, Inc., and Warranty Administration Solutions, Inc.

All of those are familiar names here in Washington state, where we in February ordered the same individuals and companies to stop transacting unauthorized insurance here.

The companies were originally also ordered to turn over a complete list of their Washington service-contract customers, and to notify those customers about the order. (Here's a link to our order.) Consumer Direct has asked for a hearing on the matter. UPDATE: This portion of the order has been stayed for now -- see this partial stay order.)

Under Washington state law, the order notes, anyone selling unauthorized insurance in the state remains “individually liable for the performance of the contract and for the full amount of any loss sustained by an insured under such contract.”

More than 15 percent of people are uninsured in U.S.

According to a new survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 46.3 million people were uninsured in 2009 - up from 43.8 million in 2008. The number includes more than 6 million kids under 18.

(In case you're wondering: We've estimated that 13.5% of people in Washington state are uninsured).

Other key findings include:

•21 million people under 65 had public health plan coverage, translating to 21 percent of that population.

•14.4 million people over 65 and 37.7 million children had private insurance.

•62.9 million people under 65 had private insurance in 2009, down from 65.4 million in 2008.

•65.8 million over-65s had private health insurance, as did 55.7 million children.

•Nearly 30 percent of young adults aged 18 to 24 lacked health insurance.

•Hispanics were the most likely to lack health insurance — 30.7 percent had none.

And here's some state specific information from the survey:

Nationally, 17.5% of persons under age 65 years lacked health insurance coverage at the time of interview in 2009. However, approximately one in four persons under age 65 in Florida and Texas, and one in five persons under age 65 in California and Georgia, lacked coverage at the time of interview. By contrast, rates of noncoverage at the time of interview in Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin were lower than the national average.

Nationally, 8.2% children in 2009 lacked coverage at the time of interview, but rates were higher in Florida (13.1%), Indiana (14.0%), and Texas (16.9%).

Nationally, 37.7% of children had public health care coverage. Among the states examined for this report, public coverage for children ranged from 24.6% in New Jersey to 43.0% in Washington.

Nationally, 62.9% of persons under age 65 had private coverage. Among the states examined, private coverage rates for persons under age 65 ranged from 75.2% in Massachusetts to 52.2% in Texas. Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin had rates above the national average.

"Grandfathered" health plans -- what's it mean? what are the rules for them?

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services today put out this detailed fact sheet about "grandfathered" health plans, which wouldn't have to comply with some elements of federal health reform.

The document details what benefits ALL health plans (grandfathered or not) must offer, starting Sept. 23, 2010. Among these: No lifetime limits.

HHS has also come up with a new regulation to prevent health plans from using grandfathered status as a shield to avoid providing consumer protections. The fact sheet has more details on this.

What about dental insurance?

A new report from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics reveals that 45 million people don't have dental coverage. The new health reforms require people to buy health insurance in 2014, but there are no such requirements for dental coverage.

According to Reuters:

Overall most non-elderly people who already have private health coverage also have a dental policy, but roughly 70 percent of those who have to buy their own health plan do not, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

Under the health reforms passed in March, adults must buy health insurance or pay a fine starting in 2014. The law does not require them to buy other types of coverage like dental or vision, although some comprehensive health care plans include the additional coverage.

While health plans must cover at minimum services like emergency care and prescription drugs, they do not have to cover oral care for adults. Dental care for children is required.

One of the biggest barriers to getting coverage if your employer doesn't offer dental insurance, is finding an individual plan. We've just updated some information on our consumer pages to include a list of individual dental carriers that we know are currently selling plans - and of course, we've included a disclaimer that the list may not be comprehensive, it's just who we know about.

And here are the key findings of the CDC's report.