Sep
24
AIG – What is happening, and how it affects you.
Filed Under China insurance, Expat Insurance, Health Insurance, Healthcare, International Healthcare, Life Insurance, Medical Insurance, USA Health Insurance | Leave a Comment
AIG: The letters on Manchester United’s football shirts, on buildings dominating skylines in major cities worldwide, and in the past week, on the front covers of the business pages, if not the entire paper.
A company with a long and storied history, AIG had posted total losses of $18.5 billion over the last three quarters, before being bailed out last Tuesday (Sep. 17th) with a loan of up to $85 billion dollars from the Federal Reserve. This was designed to effectively secure the company’s important economic position worldwide, and in exchange the Fed would get around an 80% stake in the company as a kind of security, and 12% interest on the loan.
What happened? Why did AIG suddenly need so much cash to avoid going under? Should they have been lent it?
This was not the start of the story, and it is far from being the end of it. It began, like so many of today’s economic worries, with the sub-prime mortgage crisis. To enable them to continue making yet more bad loans, banks in the US and Europe insured some of the loans with insurers such as AIG. As the largest insurance company in the US, AIG also insured many other deals made by banks or large companies, so as the economy went into recession, it lost a great deal of money, resulting in a situation where the company was very illiquid and could therefore fail. This would have had a huge knock-on effect on banks and companies not just in the US but worldwide, meaning that the Fed felt justified in bailing out AIG (whereas it left Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., who announced last week that they would file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, to their own devices).
The government was fresh from shoring up Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, (the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation and the Federal National Mortgage Association) with guarantees and the prospect of a ‘conservatorship’, and back in March, the Fed backed the purchase of the stricken Bear Stearns by JP Morgan. The Federal Reserve has as a result been rather seriously depleted.
The US is not the only country that is having to take action of this kind. The UK government ‘nationalized’ the Northern Rock bank, another victim of the sub-prime crisis in the US, back in February. Some slack is taken up by companies taking over other companies, e.g. Bank of America buying Merrill Lynch, Lloyds TSB merging with HBOS, or Barclays buying up some of Lehman Brothers’ core assets- which many would argue is how the market should work. At present, however, the US looks likely to spend yet more money to try and solve a problem that, although originating in the country, affects the world’s economy as a whole. It is unlikely that other countries will be able to continue to sit back and watch the US deal with the problem alone for very long.
The AIG bail-out looks to be only the start of an almost unprecedented level of government spending to assist private business. Lawmakers are still hashing out the details of a plan to use taxpayers’ money to buy the bad debts of financial institutions with significant operations in the US. The plan would put about $700 billion dollars spending money into the hands of Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. who would theoretically decide how to spend it in a way that balances the interests of the taxpayer - minimizing immediate costs but ensuring liquidity in the financial markets in the long term. This is a very controversial plan, and has even been called a kind of undemocratic socialism. Paulson in fact used to be head of Goldman Sachs, which along with Morgan Stanley just announced a change of legal status to enable it to take advantage of the proposal. Many politicians, including McCain and Obama, have expressed concern and are demanding greater oversight, but as it is hard even for financial experts to put a value on bad loans of the type that caused the crisis, it is unclear how this would work.
How does this affect my insurance?
Essentially, it shouldn’t. AIG has been more or less guaranteed by the US government. In any case, most private policies are with subsidiaries of AIG that are separately regulated and financially sound. Also, in the US, policies are usually guaranteed to some extent by state run associations should an insurer fail.
However, as anyone who has seen Mary Poppins should know, customers are not necessarily rational beings, as has been demonstrated in the past week, particularly in Asia. The offices of AIG subsidiaries in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong have been mobbed by people wanting to either enquire about the safety of their policies or cancel them altogether. In Hong Kong some 1,700 people surrendered their policies with AIA on Tuesday. This was despite assurances, including from the monetary authority of Singapore, that the subsidiaries of AIG are still sound. AIA in Singapore has announced a policy conservation program to enable those who surrendered their policies in panic last week to reinstate them. While some unscrupous agents might be tempted to advise people to switch insurers to get a new commission, the best course of action is probably to wait and see.
Effects on the presidential election race, and the candidates’ healthcare proposals:
Both candidates are going to have to make significant changes to their policy proposals in the face of the economic realities which will likely face the next administration. They also both have to come up with a stance on this new proposal. So far their responses have been fairly similar, with both calling for more oversight. Both McCain and Joe Biden were supporters of the deregulation in the late 90s that arguably made the sub-prime crisis possible, which may mean Obama has the edge in not having to backtrack too much. What is certain is that there is going to be a lot less money available for expensive programs such as Medicare or Medicaid, and any candidate promising tax-cuts will have serious credibility issues. The future of health insurance and healthcare financing in America is now very unclear.
Aug
29
The Health Insurance Market In China, And The Challenges It Faces.
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“Since the country’s embrace of the reform and opening-up policy, the development of China’s insurance industry has held the attention of the world,” said the China Insurance Regulatory Commission in 2006. China is indeed a huge and promising market for health insurance. But how does health insurance in China actually work?
The vast majority of Chinese people don’t have health insurance, or for that matter, access to affordable good quality healthcare. If this seems somewhat odd in a nominally socialist state, it is because it was not always the case. Mao Zedong set up a countryside healthcare system after taking power, based around agricultural communes, which brought life-long government subsidized health care to 90% of China’s population, raising life expectancy and reducing infant mortality. However, with the gradual dismantlement of commune-based agriculture under the auspices of Deng Xiaoping, the rural healthcare system which was linked to the communes fell apart, subsidies stopped flowing, and hospitals were privatised. By 1985, only 9.5% of the rural population was still covered by the medical cooperative system. The rapid economic growth of China’s cities has resulted in a situation where, while around 900 million of the population live there, only a third of health professionals work in the countryside. The government’s healthcare spending has risen overall, but has been falling as a percentage of the budget for more than a decade, and in any case, 80% of the healthcare budget is spent on government officials.
This worrying situation looks like it may be set to change, as Premier Wen Jiabao recently announced a new national health-insurance program, to be piloted in cities to start with and scheduled to be extended to the rest of the country by 2010. The government already tried to introduce cooperative medical insurance for people in the countryside in 2003, without huge success. While the situation in cities is naturally better than in the countryside, the World Bank estimated in 2005 that fewer than 60% of China’s urban residents had health insurance (still a lot more than in the countryside). Employed urban residents are the only ones allowed to participate in the national health insurance program, which excludes migrant workers (though there are some schemes theoretically supposed to help this group of people, of whom there are more than 110 million), and the unemployed.
However, of the 400 million people living in Chinese cities, and the 900 million or so in the countryside, the small proportion for whom private medical insurance is even remotely feasible still amounts to a huge number of people, and a huge potential market, and until some sort of comprehensive state health coverage is introduced, private medical insurance is set to become more and more popular with the rising numbers of middle and upper class Chinese.
The opportunities for Chinese and foreign insurance companies in the country have recently been greatly opened up. Insurance in China is still a young industry, only re-emerging, after a long hiatus, in 1984. AIG, founded in Shanghai in 1919, was the first foreign insurer to operate in China after it reopened, returning to Shanghai in 1992. Foreign insurance companies were encouraged to bring money and expertise to China, but were greatly restricted in how they could operate, resulting in mostly joint-ventures, and were not allowed to sell health insurance. Companies usually had to have a representative office in the country for many years before they were actually allowed to do business in their own right, and this is still the first step for a foreign firm setting up in China. It is still technically illegal for companies without a license to operate in China to sell insurance to Chinese clients, and until 2005 companies with a licence were limited to operating only in certain Chinese cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Tianjin.
Not until 2005 were geographical restrictions lifted, and companies were allowed to sell health insurance, group insurance, and pensions/annuities, as part of changes to put China in accordance with the conditions of its accession to the WTO. This and other reforms have made the market much more open to foreign insurers, who had a 6.9% share of the overall insurance market in 2005. On the other hand, there are still restrictions in place on entering the market, such as having to have 20 years continuous experience in the insurance business.
Experience is however usually what sets foreign insurers apart from the Chinese companies. Most health insurance policies in China are naturally provided by Chinese companies, but these have also been subject to a great many restrictions, for example on their investment options, though these are gradually being eased, for example allowing them to invest in real estate, and abroad. As many of the big Chinese insurers are still government run or owned, they have some way to go in terms of efficient management, and though companies like Ping An appointed executives experienced with global firms, helping them to take the second largest share of the market, Chinese insurers face a risk that global firms moving to China will headhunt their best people for their understanding of the Chinese market and regulations. Also, foreign insurers, with their greater insurance experience, professional standards, freedom from association with government bureacracy, and usually sounder investment strategies, may appear safer and more reliable to Chinese customers. This has resulted in a significant practice of Chinese people buying (or being sold) life insurance or health insurance policies illegally from foreign companies offering products considered better than those available within China.
The ball is rolling, and the requirements of WTO membership and the opening up of the Chinese insurance market, both legally and illegally, are causing the government to have to constantly reevaluate its regulations about insurance; the need to allow Chinese insurers to be as competitive as possible, both in the home market, where they have a head-start, and abroad, means that they are likely to be given more leeway in terms of how they invest, how they are run, and what kind of products they can offer, but in the meantime global insurance companies have a window of opportunity, which they are seizing. Hopefully, amid all this excitement, the government will remember to do something for the many millions of people that cannot afford health insurance in China.
Aug
27
A few reasons for the cost of healthcare in the US- and will they be addressed?
Filed Under Health Insurance, Healthcare, Medical Insurance, USA Health Insurance | Leave a Comment
With the US presidential election around the corner, one of the issues getting the most media attention is the candidates’ differing stances on healthcare. Everyone agrees that something needs to be done about the rising costs of healthcare in the US to the federal and state government and to private individuals; the question is: ‘what?’. But to answer this question, we need to know why costs are rising in the first place.
Part of the reason is the large numbers of different groups trying to make money out of the system. Pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, insurers; unfortunately, altruism is not always the primary motivation, and as with any detective investigation, the question we should ask ourselves is ‘cui bono?’- or ‘show me the money!’.
Hospitals in the States and elsewhere, especially with the rise of medical tourism, will often try and sell themselves to prospective patients by advertising their latest equipment or more advanced surgical techniques. Sometimes a hospital will buy a machine, such as a CT scanner, for this very reason, but in any case, once it is bought, the hospital will want to make sure it is used, even if it is expensive, unnecessary for a particular patient, or even dangerous (for example, CT scanners subject patients to radiation equivalent to that of hundreds of x-rays) - not least because of the amounts they can bill. A CT scan often leads to additional precautionary treatment- increasing costs even more. Insured patients will often want the peace of mind that new technology can bring- it may have attracted them to the hospital in the first place- and insurers may end up footing the bill, much as they try to avoid paying for unnecessary treatment. Insurers may sometimes try to avoid such costs, but only at the risk of legal challenges and their reputation in a competitive market, especially when they get it wrong.
State and federal medical programs such as Medicare and Medicaid have more difficulty when they want to exclude certain procedures from their coverage on utilitarian grounds, and are often under pressure to include more procedures. Unlike in many countries, cost-benefit analysis is not so rigorously applied in the US- for example, the The Food & Drug Administration is forbidden by law from taking cost into account when considering the approval of a new device or drug.
Drugs are another reason for the high cost of US healthcare. Other governments which run universal state healthcare systems put limits on how much they will pay for drugs, and some say that this actually pushes up the price of drugs in the States.
On the other hand, Professor Sir Michael Rawlins says that other countries are having to pay for the marketing cost of drugs in the US, which he estimates at about twice the amount spent on actual research and development- the pharmaceutical representatives who make sure their companies’ products are used in hospitals and by doctors, a privilege companies will pay for - and advertising directed at potential patients, which is forbidden in many other countries. If this is the case, it is unlikely that marketing costs will go down any time soon, as big pharmaceuticals see the patents on their money-making drugs expire and face competition from ‘generics’.
Pushing unnecessary, inappropriate and expensive drugs might not happen if cost-benefit analysis was more carefully applied to new products and techniques. As it is, physicians face pressure from drug managers who try and keep costs down for hospitals and on behalf of insurance companies. These competing forces mean a doctor might be under pressure both to promote expensive drugs and procedures and at the same time not to approve these for insurance purposes.
The questions that all this has created about the validity of being able to trust your doctor to make an unbiased prescription of the most appropriate drug, and the direct marketing of many alternative brands of drugs to patients, has created a feeling that for determined individuals the right drug is out there if they are willing to put in independent efforts to find it, and the idea that the cost will primarily devolve upon the individual may create a sense of entitlement to the newest treatments, even if they are untested and have a slim chance of success. There is even debate about whether this atmosphere may prejudice clinical trials.
It is very likely that this all inclusive approach to drugs and medical techniques has pushed up the cost of healthcare in the US without proportional benefits to life expectancy and child mortality
How can this be changed? The pharmaceutical lobby is likely to use the threat of a drop in profits due to generics taking over many of their markets to try and influence any new health-care system, and it will be hard for any government to limit drug costs unless they are simply brought down by market competition, in which case there is still the possibility that they will have to include newer and more expensive treatments in healthcare cover. The existing systems federal and state medical provision such as Medicare have been leaking money recently, because of the involvement of subsidized private intermediary plans, and well publicized incidences of paying for fraudulent and improper claims. Congress recently overrode a presidential veto which would have reduced Medicare payments for doctors; the president had justified his veto partly on the grounds that bill would “perpetuate wasteful overpayments to medical equipment suppliers.” The existing state provision appears to be wasteful and inefficient, so while everyone agrees it needs to be changed it may be harder to appear to advocate more state spending, even if it would save money. While it would seem that socialized medicine would reduce overall individual insurance costs by virtue of healthy young people’s payments subsidizing risk prone older individuals, there is a good deal of disagreement on the subject, not least because of the element of ‘Socialism’ involved.
There are many myths about the reasons for the cost of American health care- Mark Gimein in Slate points out that too much blame cannot be put on private insurers, whose profits only make up a small percentage of total healthcare costs. The popularity and promotion of expensive medical techniques and drugs must surely play a large role, and will have to be taken into account and checked more aggressively if any more universal system of health care is to be introduced in the US.
Jun
27
US Health Insurers Moving into China
Filed Under China insurance, Expat Insurance, Health Insurance, Medical Insurance, USA Health Insurance | 1 Comment
Recently, many major American insurers have looked to international markets for new customers. Thus far, major insurers have primarily targeted the booming expatriate market as their source for international customers, often times establishing field offices to better serve them. A prime example of this trend is in China, where household names such as Aetna, UnitedHealth Group and Wellpoint have all recently established field offices.
The main reason for a growing expatriate segment in China is that various multi-national corporations are setting up shop to take advantage of China’s booming economic growth. According to Martha Temple, president of Aetna global benefits, China is “…a real hotbed place for large U.S. multinational or multinational corporations [from other nations] to open or expand their offices.” As a result, Insurance companies are cashing in by aggressively targeting expatriates.
However, with the slowdown of the US economy, and China experiencing social changes such as a booming middle and upper class, insurers are now pondering the decision of whether or not to offer insurance to Chinese citizens. More and more Chinese are looking for western “luxuries” such as private health insurance as they experience and enjoy their newfound wealth. Even though China has a basic national health insurance plan, many of the middle class and well-to-do nationals would opt to supplement the national insurance plan with private insurance to have a wider range of coverage. And with a population over 4 times the size of the United States, China may be a much needed supplement to insurer’s US business.
Interestingly, foreign insurers within China must have a field office open in the country for two years before it may start selling its products, as required by the Chinese government. Aetna, which only recently opened its China office, needless to say, will have a lot to think about in this period. Possibilities of what to sell are diverse. Insurers could opt to sell non-insurance products such as wealth management plans, or offer abbreviated services such as case management or diseases management insurance. In any case, the outcome of these insurers’ decision will be an interesting one.
Jun
20
AMA hands out health insurance report cards.
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The Health Insurance Industry Convention is currently well underway in San Francisco this week and even though its only been one day record numbers of protesters are showing up to rally against the current healthcare system in the USA. This is occurring in the same week as the American Medical Association released its health insurance report card to individual insurers. All in all, it’s been a difficult week for American insurance companies.
Among the insurers rated by the report are companies like Aetna, Anthem BCBS, CIGNA, Coventry, Health Net, Humana, United Healthcare (UHC), and Medicare; and while the report has no ‘grades’ per-se, it does reveal some interesting facts about some of the country’s top insurance providers. The major focus of the report is with relation to how quickly doctors are receiving payment form insurers for services rendered to policyholders and the consensus is that most insurers are too slow.
According to some AMA members physicians are spending approximately 14% of their annual income simply to receive payment from insurance companies. And in the current economic climate, this is simply an issue that will not stand with the AMA. Paying out claims is a key issue, and failure to complete payments in a timely and efficient manner is resulting in a large amount of unrest among primary caregivers.
According to the AMA the worst offender when it comes to paying claims at the contracted rate is United Healthcare (UHC), with only 62% of all claims being paid, while Medicare was the best with a 98% completion record. While some insurers are able to follow through on Doctors payments with limited hassle many insurance companies are simply dropping the ball.
This is leading to a number of Doctors starting ‘boutique’ medical clinics in an effort to remove themselves from the world of insurance. With boutique clinics patients will typically pay a monthly, or annual, retainer under which they are entitled to 24/7 access to their caregiver. In addition to this Boutique medical practices are focusing on a more personalized form of medicine by only working with a limited number of patients, something which is paying off as many people in the
There is a problem though, Boutique practices, due to the level of attention and care provided are only accessible by patients who are relatively wealthy, meaning that the majority of the American population is unable to use these services, which brings us back to the insurance companies. As mentioned previously, the Health Insurance Industry Convention has been rocked by large numbers of protesters clamoring for a single payer healthcare system. Single payer healthcare was supported by a number of politicians running in the presidential primary elections, most notably Senator Hillary Clinton, however with John McCain and Barrack Obama sealing their relative party nominations this proposal has a very limited chance of being established.
With the presidential election coming up in November the issue of healthcare is becoming ever more important to the American Public. With a number of proposals being floated to address the current problems in the system it is clear that there will have to be a fairly radical reassessment of healthcare in the
With a number of insurers failing to meet their requirements towards primary healthcare providers it is clear that something must be done to address the system. When the domestic insurer who has the best record in settling claims is the one that is administered by the government then maybe it is worth looking at initiatives that would see the government prop up the local market. All that remains clear at the moment is that this crisis of care will not end anytime soon and that everyone in the American healthcare industry needs to be looking at viable options for the future. Whether this is in regards to improved claims handling, better insurance policy coverage, subsidies for prescribed medicines, or simply looking to lower the cost of healthcare, something must be done, otherwise there may not be the standard of quality healthcare that exists in the
Jun
18
The Way Forward
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You know it’s going to be a bad day in the healthcare industry when the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Bernard S. Bernanke, is predicting a massive rise in the cost of healthcare in the
With the primaries over, and the presidential elections just round the corner, Barack Obama and John McCain are going to have to convince the voting public that they will be able to address the current healthcare crisis, and it may not be as easy as you think. Both these candidates know that their ability to offer a suitable solution may be the difference between winning and loosing a state. With that in mind we’re going to give you a brief rundown of the options and what they could mean if implemented.
The two main options on the table are:
Barack Obama’s Proposal
1. A move to a paperless healthcare system where all patient records and health insurance documents would exist only in electronic form. This would be implemented along with quality disease prevention (as opposed to disease management), and ensuring portability of health insurance should a policyholder loose their job, and consequently their coverage.
John McCain’s Proposal
2. Create tax breaks of up to $2,500 for individuals, and $5000 for families, who have purchased private health insurance. These tax breaks will occur each year, and while this would have a relatively limited impact on the number of uninsured individuals in the
These two proposals aim to solve the current healthcare and insurance crisis in radically different ways. By removing paper from the healthcare industry Obama aims to eliminate one of the major sources of spending (namely paper) by moving everything to an electronic format. It’s easy to see how this simple proposal would save quite a bit of money, but there is a problem.
Electronic conversion is moving at a snails place in the
By far the most promising part of this proposal, at least in the eyes of the American public, is the issue of health insurance portability should an individual loose his job, and subsequently their employment backed insurance. However, it is important to note that with the HIPPA and COBRA legislations the
Citing immediate results may get Obama votes on this issue, but analysts are warning that even if these proposals are accepted by the government, the earliest changes to the system will happen approximately 5 years after the institution of the plan. This means that the
In terms of immediate impact the winner is clearly the tax break initiative proposed by John McCain. Creating a system whereby individuals would receive tax credit for any health insurance policy that they have purchased could be instituted immediately, which could give strength to the proposal in the eyes of the voting public. In addition to this McCain is not planning on upsetting the current free market system of healthcare in the
Critics of the McCain plan claim that this proposal would seriously undermine the American public’s ability to access healthcare as the policy would involve the removal of employer backed health insurance coverage. However, this is not the case at all. Under the tax break system suggested by McCain employees would still be entitled to job-sponsored insurance and this initiative would simply give a dollar for dollar tax rebate to any individual who had purchased medical insurance.
This would, in McCain’s eyes, give the American public an incentive to go out and buy health insurance, which would in turn reduce corporate spending, and improve the overall quality of health insurance plans which in turn would increase the availability of healthcare. If there truly was a free and open market for health insurance established in the
Both arguments have their critics and supporters, and both proposals recognize that there is a fundamental problem in the American healthcare system. With rapid medical inflation, millions of uninsured and underinsured citizens and pharmaceutical prices skyrocketing this is an issue that may play a very important role in the upcoming elections. But it’s up to the voting public to inform themselves and understand the subject. Is one of these plans the way forwards for healthcare and insurance in the
May
16
Private v.s. Public Healthcare: The UK Question
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The
While the National Health Service still has the biggest share of the healthcare services in
This comes as the British government is considering tax reforms that would see young British workers contribute to a new social security initiative benefiting the nation’s elderly. Following on from this comes the fact that a growing number of young professionals in the
So what’s going on?
Younger people in the
According to the Association of British Insurers (ABI) more companies than ever before are taking out private medical insurance in a bid to offer competitive benefits packages to prospective employees, and if the national service was all that it is cracked up to be, then this would not be a serious issue.
However, the fact that BUPA, the
In addition to the NHS’ bureaucracy there is a serious lack in qualified medical professionals, such as nurses, large amounts of overcrowding, poorly maintained treatment facilities and a virtual mountain to climb for treatment access. Is it any wonder that more and more individuals are choosing to go private over this public behemoth? And the situation won’t improve for the NHS, especially if a proposed imitative to give tax credit to organizations that provide private medical coverage to their employees goes through; a proposal remarkably similar to one made by Representative Ron Paul in the
And all of this comes at the same time as politicians on the other side of the
There are no hard and fast answers when considering health. However the trends in recent years, especially in countries like the
May
5
Health Care Troubles for the Insured?
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According to a recent New York Times article, America has an estimated 48 million uninsured citizens and this number may soon increase due to the economic downturn being felt across the country right now. Not only is this downturn pushing people out of being insured, but it is also dramatically affecting the insured population.
An increasing reality for many of the 158 million citizens that are insured through their employers is that medical costs are becoming unaffordable. Rising prices for food and gasoline are making many Americans think twice about their spending on health care. From another perspective, rising insurance premiums, narrower coverage, and bigger deductible and co-pay requirements are pushing health care prices through the roof. It follows that many insured Americans are not financially prepared for the costs of emergency room visits and necessary surgeries. They are choosing to pay for food and gasoline over necessary doctor visits.
According to consulting and accounting firm Deloitte, nearly one fifth of the average household’s spending goes to health care. Since 2001, health care premiums for families have risen to $3,300 from $1,800 while incomes have not increased enough to cover this change. Another survey by Deloitte points out that less than 10% of American feel they are financially prepared for their future health care needs.
Employers are also feeling the effects of a soft economy. Expenses for health care are skyrocketing and as a result, many employers are passing on these increased costs to their employees. Many have begun pushing for consumer-driven plans where lower premiums come in the form of higher annual deductibles. According to the New York Times article, nearly 6 million Americans are now enrolled in such plans.
With Presidential Elections coming later this year, it should be very interesting to see what remedies each candidate puts for and how the nation responds.
Apr
14
Healthcare Crisis in Rural China
Filed Under China insurance, International Healthcare, Medical Insurance | 1 Comment
In recent years,
However, after an age of great development in health care, progress in rural
Today, 79% of rural residents have little or no health insurance. With new capitalistic ideals,
It is no doubt that
The trends in economic prosperity and health insurance coverage are on a crash course and it looks as if
Furthermore, the traditional Chinese way of borrowing money from friends and family to pay for expensive medical conditions could become difficult. The working population, alike much of the developed world, is ageing fast and according to some predictions,
These obstacles have nation-wide, and even global, health implications too. Many epidemics such as SARS, Bird Flu, and HIV are not easily contained in rural
The most effective way to curb this dilemma is to offer affordable health insurance in rural
Apr
10
Student healthcare in the USA; a growing concern
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One of the biggest issues facing modern America is the fact that large portions of the population are underinsured, an no where is this more evident than within the nation’s tertiary student community. In fact, it’s not just underinsurance that is an issue; it’s the total lack of health insurance within 20%, almost 1.7 million individuals, of the American student population that is so worrying.
Even among those college students that are covered by some form of health insurance the prevalence of underinsurance is staggering. 31% of part time students (those attending college for less than 8 hours a week) and 18% of full time students in the
Of course the schools say that they’re not to blame, and that the problem is in the fact that insurance premiums (especially with domestic American insurers) tend to get more expensive each year, and that by obtaining these lower coverage limits the educational institution is actually helping their students by saving them money. In this regards many schools have these group policies, but it is up to the individual students as to whether they purchase it (the only variation to this rule is with regards to international students who are forced to obtain a university insurance plan prior to starting classes). Only 30% of the 4,182 tertiary education institutes in the
Where colleges and universities in the
That however, is a situation that may change. Senate Bill 1168 has been passed with the aim of providing ‘full time coverage’ to seriously sick students who are unable to attend classes full time for up to 12 months after the condition originally emerges. Known as Michelle’s law, the bill is aiming to support this large portion of the
There are other options, especially with regards to foreign students in the country. With the emergence of a strong international health insurance industry (as opposed to the local/domestic market) many major insurers have come to the realization that students deserve quality protection as much, and possibly even more, as the rest of society. This has lead to the creation of specialized ‘international health insurance student plans’ giving individuals around the world the security that they need in order to get the education that they deserve.
Despite this development of customized international student plans however, and the creation of senate bill 1168 the
