Word: blues
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...delivery was tense. The fact that Woods is not a fluent public speaker probably worked in his favor. If sentences like "I'm embarrassed. That I have put you. In this position," sounded a little Terminator-esque, they could be forgiven, given the circumstances. (The setting, with a weird blue "magic show" velvet curtain didn't help the awkwardness either.) (See the top 10 awkward press conferences...
...political ramifications of the Anthem Blue Cross story don't end at the Beltway. Steve Poizner, the California insurance commissioner who has been aggressively pursuing Anthem, is running for governor, though he is trailing far behind fellow GOP candidate (and former eBay CEO) Meg Whitman. Poizner says he supports reform of the U.S. health care system but generally opposes the Democratic House and Senate bills. Dave Jones, a Democratic state assemblyman, is running to replace Poizner in the commissioner's office on a platform of changing California law to require health insurers to get state approval before increasing rates...
Still, it's true that the Anthem Blue Cross rate hike is a perfect example of why the current individual insurance market is unsustainable. After all, the justifications the company provides for why its rates have to increase do make sense. In a bad economy, the people most likely to cancel their health insurance are healthy people; this leaves the remaining so-called risk pool less healthy, and therefore more expensive to insure. (Waxman, in a follow-up letter to WellPoint, asked the company to explain why data show that it had more individually insured customers in California...
...Anthem Blue Cross story in California is far from unique. According to the Associated Press, Maine, Oregon and Kansas are among states where consumers buying individual policies on the open market may see double-digit rate increases in 2010. Sandy Praeger, the Kansas insurance commissioner and head of the managed-care committee of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, said she agrees with others that Anthem Blue Cross is probably operating within the law in proposing its California rate hikes. "I thought the explanation made perfect sense," says Praeger. "In this job climate, if people are young and healthy, they...
Daveed Kapoor, 30, a healthy, self-employed resident of Los Angeles, is one of California's 700,000 individually insured Anthem Blue Cross customers. Since he bought his policy in 2005, he has seen his premiums rise dramatically. Just last year, his monthly rate jumped from $361 to $495, a 27% increase. Kapoor, who pays his premiums via automatic debit from his bank account, did not receive a notice about the 2009 hike and didn't realize it had happened until reviewing his bank statements several months later. This year's hike - to $665 - may be too much...