GOP May Sacrifice Individual Health Insurance For Broader Reforms quoting : Forbes

A number of positive things can be said about the Senate Republicans' health care bill, but "stopping the collapse of the individual health insurance market" isn't one. Most of Obamacare's major reforms were focused on the relatively small individual health insurance market. Here's the back story: Prior to the Affordable Care Act, some 17 million Americans—including my wife—bought their own policies in the individual health insurance market. In most states, a health insurer could deny an uninsured person coverage or charge more if that person had a major medical condition. Refusal to cover or imposing higher premiums are standard actuarial practices applied in every type of insurance (e.g., life and auto).




AARP is already on record against the Senate bill, citing what it calls an "age tax" as well as cuts to Medicaid. The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, tried to address that problem by requiring all Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty. Senate staffers say they're open to adding a similar provision to the Senate bill. Imposing a coverage requirement on insurance companies without a corresponding mandate for customers runs the risk of creating a very shaky insurance market. But the Senate bill preserves a more popular piece of Obamacare: the requirement that insurance companies cover everyone, even those with pre-existing medical conditions.

Health Insurance Giant Agrees to Record $115 Million Payout Over Data Breach

Health insurance giant Anthem Inc. will cough up $115 million to end a court battle over a 2015 data breach that exposed the sensitive information of nearly 80 million Americans. Americans are sick and tired of constantly getting notices about how their social security numbers and credit cards have been compromised. (Target, for example, settled for a measly $18.5 million last month after a breach exposed the payment cards of 41 million customers.) Victims already enrolled in a credit monitoring service (because, let's face it, who isn't at this point) may opt to receive a check instead—probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $50. Anyway, moving on...AdvertisementAnthem has also agreed to guarantee "a certain level of funding for information security and to implement or maintain numerous specific changes to its data security systems, including encryption of certain information and archiving sensitive data with strict access controls," according to Cyberscoop.


collected by :Lucy William

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