Does health insurance increase your lifespan?

Felue Chang, who is newly insured under an insurance plan through the Affordable Care Act, receives a checkup from Dr. Peria Del Pino-White at the South Broward Community Health Services clinic on April 15 in Hollywood, Fla.

The mortality rate in Massachusetts declined substantially in the four years after the state enacted a law in 2006 mandating universal health care coverage, providing the model for the Affordable Care Act.­

In a study released last week, Harvard School of Public Health professors Benjamin Sommers, Sharon Long and Katherine Baicker conclude that "health reform in Massachusetts was associated with a significant decrease in all-cause mortality."

The authors caution that their conclusions, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, may not apply to all states, and other studies have shown little correlation between having insurance and living longer. Nevertheless, the Harvard study adds to a growing body of evidence that having health insurance increases a person's life expectancy.

Mortality rates – in this case, the number of deaths per 100,000 adults between the ages of 20 and 64 that occur in a given year – vary widely among states. Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Louisiana have the highest age-adjusted rates (which recognize that some states have older or younger populations). Hawaii, California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New York and Massachusetts have the lowest mortality rates, according to 2010 data (the most recent available) from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Uninsured rates also vary widely. Between 2011 and 2012 Massachusetts had the lowest uninsured rate in the nation at 4 percent of its population, compared to a national average of 15 percent, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of U.S. Census data. Texas had the highest rate at 25 percent, followed by Nevada (24 percent) and New Mexico and Florida (both 22 percent).

Massachusetts is also among the most affluent states in the nation, and it has one of the highest average education levels and ratios of physicians to residents, all of which lower mortality rates. Many other factors also affect the death rate of a state or regional population, including the prevalence of chronic diseases, obesity, climate and environmental hazards, smoking and drug and alcohol abuse, gun violence and occupational safety.

"It is difficult to compare one state to another when it comes to mortality rates," said Alison Cuellar, a health economist at George Mason University. "All the evidence points in the direction of health insurance increasing longevity," she said. "We just don't know the magnitude of the effect."

In 2002, the Institute of Medicine estimated that the death rate of the uninsured is 25 percent higher than for otherwise similar people who have health insurance. According to the study, 18,000 excess deaths occurred each year because 40 million Americans lacked insurance.

But a 2009 rebuttal study by Richard Kronick of the Health Research and Education Trust found that when adjusted for health status and other factors, the risk of subsequent mortality is no different for people who lack insurance than for those who are covered by employer-sponsored plans. Kronick's conclusion: "There is little evidence to suggest that extending insurance coverage to all adults would have a large effect on the number of deaths in the United States."

The Harvard researchers compared Massachusetts death rates from 2001 to 2005 to the four-year period after the new health care law was enacted, and found that the mortality rate decreased by 3 percent between 2006 and 2010. Using county-level mortality rates from the CDC, they compared 4 million Massachusetts residents (the entire population from age 20 to 64) to a control group with similar demographics in counties in other New England states.

Greater access to health care may have prevented as many as 320 deaths per year, the authors estimated. Changes were most pronounced in Massachusetts counties with lower household incomes and higher uninsured rates. According to the authors, providing health coverage to 830 uninsured adults prevented one death per year.

Stateline is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Charitable Trusts that provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy.

Hep C Cure Costs Pose Challenge for Medicare

By Richard Knox NPR 

Walter Bianco has had hepatitis C for 40 years, and his time is running out. "The liver is at the stage next to becoming cirrhotic," the 65-year-old Arizona contractor says. Cirrhosis is severe scarring, whether from alcoholism or a chronic viral infection. It's a fateful step closer to liver failure or liver cancer.

If he develops one of these complications, the only possible solution would be a hard-to-get liver transplant. "The alternative," Bianco says, "is death."

Previous drug treatments didn't clear the virus from Bianco's system. But it's almost certain that potent new drugs for hep C could cure him. However, the private insurer that handles his medication coverage for the federal Medicare program has twice refused to pay for the drugs his doctor has prescribed.

Doctors are seeing more and more patients approaching the end-stage of hep C infection. "There isn't day that goes by when I don't have a story very similar to Mr. Bianco's," says Dr. Hugo Vargas of Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz., his liver specialist. Researchers estimate that 3 to 5 million Americans carry the insidious hep C virus. The biggest concentration is among those born between 1945 and 1965.

Many, like Bianco, got hep C from injecting street drugs in their youth. He says he's been drug- and alcohol-free for 32 years, but the infection was permanent.

Other baby boomers got the virus from transfusions before 1992, a period when blood wasn't screened. Some got it from sharing razors or toothbrushes, or from contaminated tattoo needles or hospital equipment. For some, transmission was sexual, although fortunately this isn't the highest-risk route.

The timing of these infections spells trouble for Medicare, which insures Americans over 65.

Hepatitis C is a slow-acting virus. Over a period of 20 to 40 years, it causes liver damage in about 70% of people it infects. A growing number of people who got infected in the 1960s through the 1990s have now "used up" the infection's latency period, notes Dr. Camilla Graham of Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston, "which is why we're now seeing this dramatic increase in the number of people developing complications and dying of hepatitis. And we expect this to continue to increase for the next 10 years."

Is A Cure Worth $84,000?

Another part of Medicare's problem is that new hep C medications are among the priciest of any drugs. One called Sovaldi, federally approved last December, costs $1,000 a pill -- or $84,000 for a typical 12-week treatment course. The other recently approved drug, Olysio, costs around $66,000. Others in the pipeline are expected to be similarly expensive.

"People were very shocked about the price because it hit a psychological barrier in terms of 'this is too expensive,'" Graham says. She has a patient like Walter Bianco -- a 65-year-old woman whose severe liver damage puts her on the edge of liver failure. Graham believes her patient's best chance at cure lies in the use of both Sovaldi and Olysio. "We have about 160 people who were studied in a clinical trial called COSMOS that showed a very high cure rate -- 90% to 100% -- for even the most difficult-to-treat patients with this combination," she says.

But, as in Bianco's case, the Medicare drug-benefit contractor that covers this patient has refused to approve payment. The apparent reason is that the FDA has not yet approved use of the two drugs in combination. (On May 7, Olysio's maker, Janssen Therapeutics, asked the agency for such approval.

But Graham notes that in the early days of successful antiviral drug treatment for HIV, payers allowed doctors to "mix and match" medications in "off-label" or unapproved combinations as they thought best. "Medicare has been slower to adopt off-label combinations than most of the other insurance plans," Graham says.

Accelerating Demand

Medicare officials wouldn't comment on coverage of new help C drugs. A spokesman wrote in an email that the federal program turns such decisions over to private insurers that administer its drug plan, called Medicare Part D.

However, advocates say Medicare officials are well aware of the program's looming exposure to the enormous costs of treating hep C. Some say it could run in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, though it's not clear over what period of time.

One thing likely to accelerate demand for treatment: Medicare is expected to approve payment for routine blood tests for hep C infection soon. That will reveal many people who don't yet know they're infected -- and spark difficult conversations between patients and doctors on when to use the expensive new medications to clear the virus from their blood.

Many hepatitis specialists and patient advocates are worried that the cost of the drugs will lead payers to limit access to patients who already have advanced liver disease, or even more narrowly, those who are on transplant waiting lists. "We're very scared that these programs to limit access to treatment could interfere with our goals of trying to find people with hepatitis C," Graham says.

Ryan Clary of the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable, a patient advocacy group, says public health may be on a collision course with treatment and reimbursement policy.

"On the one hand, we're saying 'Now is the time to be tested for hep C. There are these promising treatments,'" Clary says. "But on the other hand, we're saying 'You can't have access to these cures. It'll bankrupt the country.' So where's the incentive to test?" Apart from expensive drug treatment aimed at cure, doctors say there are other good reasons for identifying infected patients. They can be counseled to stay away from alcohol, which accelerates hep C-related liver damage. They can also be told about steps to take to avoid infecting others.

There are other implications of delaying treatment until liver damage is advanced. Once a patient has developed cirrhosis, he'll need to be monitored every 6 months for the rest of his life for signs of liver cancer.

And if a patient tips into liver failure or cancer before getting cured, treatment will cost an estimated $50,000 a year -- possibly over several years. "Hepatitis C is a ticking time bomb," Graham says. "We have a very limited amount of time to get in here and alter the course of the disease for a good number of people. And we either do that, and we do it well now, or we face a whole lot more people suffering severe complications of this disease."

While the cost and treatment implications get sorted out, patients like Walter Bianco are in an agonizing limbo. He says he can't possibly afford the $150,000 it would cost to buy Sovaldi and Olysio on his own. "It is a lot of money and there are a lot of help C sufferers out there," he says. "I think Medicare's probably thinking 'If we can hold off for a year or two, some of these following drugs will be cheaper.'"

But Hugo Vargas, Bianco's doctor, says it's urgent to cure his infection now. "If he were my father," the Mayo specialist says, "I would want Mr. Bianco to be treated now -- not in a year, not in a year-and-a-half."

This article, which first appeared May 12, 2014, was produced in collaboration with NPR and had support from The SCAN Foundation. It was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research and communication organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

WesthillConsultingInsurance - Howto Avoid Health Care Fraud

Mail-ordermedications

Patients who buy drugs through mail-order companies could be rolling the dice with their health says Dr. Deborah C. Peel, a physician and founder of the nonprofit Patient Privacy Rights.  There’s a high probability in many cases that these drugs are counterfeit Peel added.

“And you don’t ever know because the fraudulent tablets look just like the real ones,” says Peel.

She says ordering from companies that specialize in mail-order sales that are not affiliated with a legitimate insurance company, especially from foreign countries, can be very risky. Not only could the quality be questionable, it could also be illegal.

“But people are desperate because we’re being so grossly overcharged for medication,” she says.

Peel says you can lessen costs by buying generic. You can spot it by: the best thing to do is to keep away from buying drugs from foreign or obscure pharmacies.  And if you decide to go with the mail-order route, just stay with U.S.-based companies because if it’s a U.S. company, you can report the health care fraud to the Food and Drug Administration while if it’s a foreign company, there’s little that can or will be done.

Falseproductclaims

According to the Federal Trade Commission, millions fall victim each year to false miracle cures. Especially vulnerable are victims of debilitating and potentially deadly illnesses such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV and AIDS.

The FTC website says scammers take advantage of people with a grim diagnosis such as cancer and “promote unproven — and potentially dangerous — substances like black salve, essiac tea, or laetrile with claims that the products are both ‘natural’ and effective.” But, say physicians and other experts, simply because something is advertised as “natural” doesn’t mean it works. And while a patient is experimenting with bogus treatments, he or she can squander the opportunity to receive treatments that might truly be effective. Peel says consumers should beware of products with personal testimonies that prove nothing. Don’t trust a product just because of favorable reviews on the Internet, she warns.

How to spot it: If product claims make it sound like it’s too good to be true, then it is. Something that works miracles would make headlines, so when “Mary in Indiana” says that a special tea cured her cancer, it’s a worthless testimonial.

Here is something worth doing: protect yourself against phony products through talking to your trusted physician or physical therapist.

Dental treatments performed by nonprofessionals

Earlier this year, an Oklahoma dentist accused of allowing unlicensed employees to give IVs to patients made nationwide headlines after some patients were alleged to have contracted hepatitis due to the purported use of contaminated instruments.

This happens although not that usual, and industry professionals such as James Quiggle, communications director of the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, say you can take steps to ascertain that your dentist employs ethical practices. One such step is to scope out dentists you’re considering.

“Go to two or three dental offices and get a sense of the comfort level of that office, how clean it is, how professional and whether it’s up-to-date and well-lit,” says Quiggle. While dental scams are not as common as some other types of health care fraud, the results obtained by an unscrupulous dentist can be life-altering in a terrible way.

Trust your instincts and find someone else: if you have dental insurance, check your explanation of benefits statement and make sure it matches the work you had performed.  If the office seems unsanitary or the staff not properly trained, better be a sign of not pursuing to have any transaction with them.

Medicalidentitytheft

A report from Ohio authorities said they’ve indicted a man for using a fraudulent identity to obtain $345,000 in medical treatment from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.  The man used a stolen license multiple times in order to get services from 2008 to 2013, according to news media reports.

Medical identity theft is one of the most serious and fastest-growing crimes in the nation.  Some sources say the damages run as high as $234 billion.  Some 1.85 million Americans were affected by medical identity theft in 2012, according to a study by the Ponemon Institute.

Jeff Young, vice president of fraud control at Verisk Health, says you should guard your health care insurance information as carefully as you do banking data. “Protect it, don’t carry it around and report it immediately if you lose it,” says Young.

Your credit can be ruined if you become the victim of medical ID theft.  You can find flawed treatment information on your records and creditors will harass you to pay for treatment never received.

Bogus medical treatment after a staged car crash

Quiggle says it’s an old scam he’s seeing more and more, as well as a source of rising insurance premiums.  Four residents of Jacksonville, Fla., including a chiropractor, were recently arrested and charged with staging automobile accidents, then steering the victims to the chiropractor for treatment they did not need.

Fake accidents are very common and more often than not dangerous.  The National Insurance Crime Bureau reports that criminals targeting the Las Vegas area are staging fake accidents by pulling into the paths of big rigs and slamming on their brakes.  These scammers are up to getting big settlements out of the truckers but a lot of these staged crimes also involve false medical treatment.

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Aetna will stop selling individual health plans in California

SACRAMENTO, California — Aetna Inc. discontinue selling individual health insurance policies in California, just weeks after opting out of the exchange that is being established as part of the national health care reforms, a state regulator said last month.

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said he was disappointed in Aetna's decision because consumers need more choices. The decision does not affect people who have Aetna insurance through their employer.

"This is not good news for California consumers," Jones said in a statement. "A competitive market with more choices for consumers is important, as we implement the Affordable Care Act and health insurance coverage is a requirement."

In California's individual health insurance market, Aetna is a quite small player. According to 2011 figures compiled by the California HealthCare Foundation, Aetna has about 5 percent of the state's individual health market. By comparison, Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield and Kaiser share 87 percent.

Aetna says it has about 58,000 individual enrollees in the state and expects to have about 49,000 by the end of the year. It plans to withdraw from the state at the end of the year but will continue to offer small and large group plans, as well as Medicare, dental and life insurance products.

Those in search of to buying their own health insurance will be directed to Covered California, the state's new health insurance exchange starting Oct. 1. Aetna was not among 13 insurance carriers that will sell individual coverage to millions of Californians through the exchange.

According to Jones' office Under state law, Aetna will not be allowed to sell individual policies in California for five years once it leaves that market.

Forms of term life insurance coverage:

ART or Annual renewable term life - The policy holder can renew the policy yearly for a set period of time, can be for as long as 30 years. Premiums are adjusted higher with each annual renewal and such policies are based on the age of the policy holder.

A Guaranteed level premium term life is an insurance that allows the policy holders to lock in an assured premium for a set period of 5, 10, 15, 20 years or more. The guaranteed level serves as a protection of the policy holders from increases due to inflation or from higher premiums - that might otherwise result from changes in the policy holder's health.

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Retiring overseas may seem like a fabulous idea, but the quality of health care often has post 50s thinking twice before making a move abroad. But they needn't worry.Live and Invest Overseas, an online publication devoted to helping those interested in living abroad, has a list of the eight best places to retire for quality health care. (They also published a list of the 21 best places to retire in 2013 earlier this year.)

Live and Invest Overseas' Retirement Index took into account the availability of care that most foreigners would find acceptable; insurance coverage options; cost (both of care and of local insurance); and the quality and number of hospitals and clinics.

"If health care is a priority (that is, if you have an existing, ongoing medical concern), then you probably want to stick close to a city," said Kathleen Peddicord, publisher of Live and Invest Overseas. "Medical care is cheaper most everywhere in the world than it is in the United States; of course, not everywhere in the world boasts international-standard medical care.

"However, you can find top-notch care in centers of population, from Cuenca, Ecuador to Panama City, and from Kuala Lumpur to Montevideo," she added. "And, in these places, this legitimately world-class care can be one-fourth the cost of comparable care in the United States or less."

Westhill Consulting: Healthcare & Insurance -Individuals, families and the self employed Health Insurance

It is hard to find a health insurance in the current situation of our marketplace. It seems impossible to get one of those as per this individual health insurance can offer you a confusing array of options more especially if you're one of the millions of Americans who buys their own health coverage. This health coverage are sometimes good but not always and worse few are expensive.

Agents though are everywhere, and they are easy to find and readily available. They offer you cheap health insurance but you got to remember this: health coverage isn't cheap if it doesn't adequately cover your expenses when you need it most.

Health reform legislation is recently passed and thanks to this the landscape is changing for consumers. Soon, millions of uninsured will have an access for a quality but low-cost insurance. The chief challenge could be determining options to choose the right coverage.

There is nothing to worry about! Because Westhill Healthcare Consulting  has everything that one has to know, all the information you needed.

Learn. Compare. Save.

We have library of articles and we are sure every article is fruitful. Learn how to cut your health care costs, get coverage if you're self-employed.

Go through most frequently asked questions about health coverage and be familiar with health insurance terms.

Discover how health reform will affect your benefits and your budget. Otherwise find out how it stands to help populations that historically have faced barriers to affordable health coverage.

It would be useful and practical if you use free, no-obligation health insurance quotes to compare private health insurance in your area, plan benefits and coverage costs.

Every plan id different in every state so the first thing to do is to go through our state guide in order to evaluate coverage options, including whether your state offers high-risk health insurance pools for those with pre-existing conditions. Done with the comparing? Once you have finished few insurance quote comparisons to determine the best coverage that suits your needs, you can in fact buy the low-cost plan that fits your needs. After this, a Buying online is becoming more popular because it's fast, secure and private.

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Westhill Healthcare Consulting is one of the internet's oldest sites that offer consumer information on reasonably priced health and medical coverage since it was published during early 90's. It is the most-trusted independent site, respect and loyalty was earned through the years of hard work. All the information on this site is projected to the general consumer audience.

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Your concern is our business, as service to our visitors, we provide health insurance quotes from carefully chosen partners who are in the business of selling health insurance, and who meet Westhill Healthcare Consulting strict standards. It is the referrals that pay us and in turn this is what we use to pay the cost of publishing this site.

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Westhill Healthcare Consulting has a complete editorial freedom over the content on its pages since it was published. Some information we provide such as view expressed are our editors' and this are not to be shared by other sites we link to or partner with. On behalf universal health insurance access, advocacy efforts are issue-specific. Also, they are not supposed to be considered an endorsement of any particular elected official, political party or ideology.

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