UnitedHealth to exit individual insurance market in California

The nation's largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group Inc., is leaving California's individual health insurance market, the second major company to exit in advance of major changes under the Affordable Care Act. UnitedHealth said it had notified state regulators that it would leave the state's individual market at year-end and force about 8,000 customers to find new coverage. Last month, Aetna Inc., the nation's third-largest health insurer, made a similar move affecting about 50,000 existing policyholders. Both companies will keep a major presence in California, focusing instead on large and small employers. Full coverage: Healthcare law comes to California The moves illustrate how different companies are responding to a major overhaul of the health insurance market for millions of consumers. Starting Jan. 1, the federal healthcare law forces insurers to accept all individual applicants regardless of their medical history and provide a comprehensive set of benefits with limits on patients' out-of-pocket spending. Healthcare experts said some national insurers aren't interested in playing by those new rules in states where their presence in the individual market is relatively small and more profits can be made by tending to the employer market.

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It seems like every day brings a new event show casing just how badly O care screws America and Americans. This bill needs to be scrapped and insurance should be handled on a state by state basis not a "one size fits all" approach which is clearly shown to be an epic failure. Improving health care was never the goal here. Short term the goal is to bailout/enrich the insurance companies, nut long term the goal is government control over your health. What a disaster that will be when it comes. Witch doctors with leeches(not congress critters lest one gets confused, but REAL leeches) and blood-lettings would serve us better than what the regime has in store for us. I really wish the sheeple would pull their collective heads out of their.... the sand, yeah that's what I was going to say. This person has his heart set on the destruction of this nation and he is made many, many steps in that direction. Not that he has done it alone, TPTB have been working on it in earnest for the past 25 years. Over the last 100 years they worked little by little with Wilson and the federal reserve/income tax; FDR and his socialist policies; Johnson with his "war on poverty", which has seen poverty grow tremendously and also saw the destruction of the Black nuclear family; Reagan's first amnesty for illegals, which they promised would never happen again ; Bush I with his "new world order"; Clinton with NAFTA, Perot warned us what would happen but everybody called him a cook. Yet here we are exactly where he said we would be; Bush II with the "patriot act" and other dictatorial power grabs; all culminating now with the current bozo in chief Obama making the final grabs for what shreds of personal freedom remain.

reply to post by DarthMuerte


You know what I think is going on?

Obamacare was a handout to the insurance companies. They are going to make money, hand over fist with this new legislation.

These big companies getting out of the certain states, will most likely create themselves small companies to operate as a 'fresh' face to the insurance market. Nobody wants to buy a policy from a company who looks greedy.

So you close your current offices and incorporate some little, mom and pop looking insurance company to do your dirty work.

I'm a big fan of healthcare, not a big fan of just handing it to the private interests though and letting them put more in their pockets than they were already getting.

~Tenth

On the subject of United Healthcare---which is our family's insurance. I went to renew my daughters prescriptions online for the mail order pharmacy and got hit with a surprise. In order for a parent to manage a child's prescriptions, that child must be under 13. If the child is over 13, then I must get " Caregiver Access" and permission from a 13 yr child.

Thirteen????

A parent has to get permission from a 13 yr old so they can fill their prescriptions? You've got to be kidding??

WTH is going on??

Household accounts are simply accounts of family members in your household, including your minor dependents, adult dependents (over 13 years old)ld), or spouse/partner (with their permission).

How can I view my dependent(s) or spouse’s pharmacy benefit online?

You can view and manage all your dependents under the age of 13 by accessing their account from the My Prescriptions Page. Select the dependent’s account you’d like to view using the View Accounts drop down box on the left hand side of the page.

To view and manage the accounts of any dependent age 13 and older, including your spouse, will require those dependents to grant you Caregiver Access. To grant you access to manage and access their accounts, your dependent must follow these steps:

Register on the member website listed on your new health plan ID card.
Within the pharmacy section of the member website, go to Household/Caregiver Access view listed under the My Account tab.
Select “Setup Caregiver” under Choose a Topic. Click Add a Caregiver and enter the name, birth date, address, phone and email of the person you wish to be your Caregiver into the form provided. Check the Agreement box at the bottom of the form and click Submit.
Once the Add Caregiver Access form is submitted, a confirmation email is generated and sent to the email address you provided.
The email will contain instructions and a special security code that your Caregiver will use to register within the pharmacy section of the member website. Those Caregivers with existing accounts on your member website will not have to register again.
Once these steps are completed, you will have full access to the account of your dependent or spouse.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I'm not honestly sure what to call this system or compare it to. I'm not sure there is really a comparison. Calamity Care might be a fitting term, but hardly productive. However, the issue I think is that insurance is pretty much becoming subordinate partners to the Federal Government by law, not choice on this, and it's to our collective detriment. Their own people have and are continuing to get waivers at whatever loophole or wiggle around method may exist to get one and for good reason.

Obamacare Summaries - Health Exchanges

There is nothing like getting it right from them directly and there it is to behold. How that can be seen as anything other than a public / private partnership in the way the Mafia partnered with a debtor in their business is beyond me. What's going to be interesting though is that the law Missouri passed says and keeping in mind, we aren't the only state to do this or something similar.

The act further prohibits state agencies from establishing programs or promulgating any rules or policies to establish, create, administer or otherwise operate a state-based health insurance exchange unless the agency has received statutory authority to create it. The act specifically prohibits agencies from performing responsibilities of a state-based health insurance exchange unless authorized by statute.

Now that part is what some others have done too and then they stopped there. That is also what Obama has written into the law to ignore and make a Federal one anyway. Missouri thought of that too.

The act prohibits agencies from entering into agreements to establish or operate a federally-facilitated health benefit exchange unless the agency has received statutory authority to enter into such agreements. In addition, the act prohibits departments and agencies from providing assistance or resources of any kind to any federal agency or department relating to the creation of a federally-facilitated health benefit exchange unless the assistance or resources are authorized by state statute or the assistance is mandated by federal law.

Source

This passed as a Missouri State Constitutional Amendment in the last election and it's what the Supreme Court decision Obama seemed so happy about on one hand awhile back, also made legal and possible for the states to do in saying no to Uncle Sam and NOT having reprisals from Washington in any other way for saying it. That part of the decision, which was the Super Court's gift to the states, is always over looked for some reason....

Anyway, we have an interesting year coming because that makes for immovable object in the path of irresistible force until the Super Court rules on it specifically ..and this court hasn't been Obama friendly in many ways. lol... I'd hate for the crux of things to rest in their hands a second time if I were Obama.

California didn't pass it though, so insurance companies like United have a major problem there.

i always suspected Obama had hidden motives for his health care reforms, it was never to make health care cheaper or easier to access, it's all been a plan to create corporate insurance monopolies so the government can consolidate health care and i suspect that as planned, when these companies fail, the government will give them "financial aid" or create a "stimulus package" in exchange for managing their finances so as to start the process of nationalization and through that the eventual creation of a national health care system in line with what exists in Canada.

this is a sign of what i suspected all along, he used the corporations greed and the peoples desperation for cheaper health care to sneak universal health care in, the corporations will try to sneak around under different names in their attempts to monopolize the market and in doing so, fall for the trap laid out for them, they will think great profits exist where it doesn't and they will fall apart hard and fast, just watch in three or four years(or possibly less) there will be a health care crisis where these corporations are all going bankrupt and will need bailouts to continue, it will be the beginning of the end of private health care.

reply to post by virraszto

This is crazy. I recall recently hearing that birth control should be made available to girls at age 13. Now the dots just need connecting. This further tears down the family structure i.e. agenda 21. I wonder if a parent will be allowed to be in the exam room with the child without permission, and if the child refuses the doctor will then coach the child on the importance of birth control. Then, further coach the child that they can hide it from their parents if they don't want them to know. Nefarious indeed....

Then again, i'm just a kooky "conspiracy theorist" and the govt knows what is best for us all...

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Wrabbit2000 - what do you think this is going to do for/to the under-65 disabled folks (like me)? Like many other individuals, totally disabled and now under-age recipients of Medicare (Part A & B only), supplemental insurance (or "Medicare Advantage" programs, depending) are now quite limited for under-age recipients. In my case, I am covered under the wife's employer's plan (at an exhorbitant "family" rate) and the "Medicare" plan literally pays nothing for me - unless you count the $2 or $3 check I receive twice a year because of "overpayments" in my copay amounts. Medicare only has the effect of reducing my hospital bills to Medicare mandated maximums, the rest of the time the wife's private plan pays (somewhat) and we have pretty high "annual deductibles" ($3000/family)?.

I haven't heard anything about this - i.e. what happens to those of us "on Medicare". My wife and I are concerned that the Obamacare "Family coverage" costs are going to be through the roof and I've been considering getting off her employer's plan (to save money) and on to a "Medicare supplement" type insurance. Even now, standard Part A & Part B Medicare benefits are effectively unavailable to me because my private health insurance doesn't cover these costs (diabetic wellness stuff like shoes and orthotics) and Medicare stipulates secondary coverage [bonly [if you have additional or private insurance coverage. What's going to happen to folks like us that are NOW paying Medicare for one, and "Family" private health care coverage for two? I have heard that premiums for "platinum level" type plans (subsidized by the wife's employer) are going to rise from 80% to 400%. We're already paying over 12% - sometimes 25% for coverage depending upon the number of hours worked in the pay period.

My plan is to drop private health care, only go to Emergency Room for all my health care and just DIE early because health care isn't affordable. Even with all the health care plans we've got, I'm spending 15% or more of my net (after paying Medicare premiums) on drugs and copays! Even now I'm sitting on prescriptions for physical rehab for six months because we can't afford the copays! Wonder what the working REALLY poor people are going to do under Obamacare in 2014?

ganjoa

Stupid double post

I wouldn't worry too much about medicare/medicaid. Many doctors are already refusing to accept either and some are just closing their practices altogether due to the latest reductions in medicare/medicaid/insurance reimbursements.