Health Insurance

Asthma sufferers have long relied on inhalers for relief from wheezing or coughing attacks. But as of Dec. 31, Primatene Mist -- the only available over-the-counter asthma inhaler -- was taken off shelves because of its adverse effect on the environment. Other inhalers are available, but these require a doctor's prescription. Some people with asthma aren't happy about the change, but lung doctors and asthma specialists agree that Primatene Mist wasn't the best option for patients anyway.

Blue Shield of California's longtime chairman and chief executive, Bruce Bodaken, will retire at year's end, punctuating a career marked by praise for his early support of universal health coverage and criticism of his company's repeated rate hikes. Bodaken, 60, will leave at the end of December, and Paul Markovich, 45, currently chief operating officer at the nonprofit health insurer, will take over as CEO. The San Francisco company's 10-member board will elect a new, independent chairman this year.

For people who've assumed they'll take the option of continuing their employer-based health insurance -- at their own expense -- if they lose their jobs during 2009, it was sobering news. For those who have lost their jobs, it was painfully unsurprising.

Supporters of a proposed ballot measure seeking tighter regulation of health insurance rates in California turned in 800,000 petition signatures, confident that they will qualify for the Nov. 6 election. In the coming weeks, county election offices and the California secretary of state will determine whether the measure meets the requirement for 504,760 valid signatures of registered voters. The deadline to qualify is June 28. The initiative is expected to spark an expensive campaign battle over rising health insurance rates, which have angered thousands of California consumers in recent years.

Amy Reiley had resigned herself to joining the ranks of the uninsured. The part-time L.A. resident and owner of a boutique cookbook publishing company had a group insurance plan that for three years covered her and another full-time employee. But when Reiley's employee became eligible for Medicare, she lost the group policy and was left to search for insurance on her own. Reiley, in her 30s, has a history of headaches resulting from neck spasms, which she manages with a muscle relaxant.

Lipitor is the most prescribed name-brand drug in America - nearly 3.5 million people take it every day to control their cholesterol. Since the statin entered the market in 1997, it's earned New York-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. $81 billion, making it the best-selling prescription drug of all time, according to IMS Health, a Danbury, Conn.-based healthcare information company. So when Lipitor's patent protection came to an end Nov. 30 and a generic alternative became available, an awful lot of patients had a decision to make: Should they stick with the drug they knew or switch to something less expensive?

Woodland Hills insurer Health Net has agreed to pay as much as $14 million to settle a pair of lawsuits brought on behalf of 800 former policyholders whose coverage was dropped after they submitted substantial medical bills. Under the deal, which won preliminary court approval Wednesday, individuals whose health insurance policies were canceled since 2004 are eligible for payments of up to $218,000. The average payment is expected to be $7,836. The settlement would resolve a class-action lawsuit filed by Claremont lawyer William Shernoff, as well as a suit filed by Los Angeles City Atty.

The term "socialized medicine" may be losing its boogeyman status, according to a survey of voting-age adults. Long uttered in warnings against any sort of government involvement in healthcare, today the term has largely lost its scare power. That's according to a study led by Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health. "This is a term from the 1940s," Blendon says. "We wondered if anyone even knew what it meant anymore."

Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said that the U.S. health care system is unfair to millions of Americans, and he called for the appointment of a presidential commission to draft a plan for change. In a commencement address to graduates of the University of Massachusetts in Boston, Koop catalogued the ills of the medical delivery and insurance system, laying particular emphasis on inequities. "Our current system of health care is not fair, it's not just and it's not the morally strong system this country deserves," he said.

Emergency room patients often must wait hours -- or sometimes days -- for treatment from specialists, largely because many doctors resist coming in unless they are assured adequate payment, according to a state report. The report released Wednesday by the California Senate Office of Research concluded that the crisis affects patients with and without health insurance. In some cases, patients are shuffled from hospital to hospital until an appropriate specialist is found, the report stated.

Re "It's time to serve up some big incentives to reduce obesity," Column, May 15 Americans seem to be bipolar when it comes to weight. We are bombarded with conflicting messages in the media. We are told to strive for the hard bodies featured in the Nautilus ads, but no sooner has that commercial faded than a triple-bacon cheeseburger splats onto the screen, being consumed by a bikini model who likely subsists on tofu and kale. We are constantly faced with choosing between need and want.

WASHINGTON - Even as Americans debate whether to scrap President Obama's healthcare law and its promise of guaranteed health coverage, many far less affluent nations are moving in the opposite direction - to provide medical insurance to all citizens. China, after years of underfunding healthcare, is on track to complete a three-year, $124-billion initiative projected to cover more than 90% of the nation's residents. Mexico, which a decade ago covered less than half its population, just completed an eight-year drive for universal coverage that has dramatically expanded Mexicans' access to life-saving treatments for diseases such as leukemia and breast cancer.

WASHINGTON - By the time the Supreme Court wrapped up the last of its public arguments for this term, it had been an unusually rough first year for U.S. Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli Jr., the Obama administration's chief courtroom lawyer. A respected, reserved corporate attorney, Verrilli also had a passion for defending inmates on death row. But he had not handled high-stakes, politically charged cases in the high court. He seemed repeatedly caught off guard when his liberal arguments were met with skepticism and even scorn from the justices, a majority of whom lean to the right.

It's tough enough to be without health insurance. But do healthcare providers have to make it even worse by treating you like a moron? Santa Monica resident Tom Wilde recently received bills from a downtown Los Angeles clinic and the L.A. County/USC Medical Center totaling almost $2,500. What exactly were the charges for? The bills didn't say. There was no itemizing of procedures and prices. No diagnosis. No treatment date. No nothing. Just a notation of "new charges" and the amount due. "They certainly wouldn't send such a bill to an insurance company," Wilde, 51, told me. "Insurance companies want to know exactly what they're paying for. " So you'd think.

I just applied for an insurance plan for my 10-year-old daughter, but she was denied because she has asthma. I thought the new health reform law required insurance companies to cover kids. You're mostly correct. As of Sept. 23, 2010, insurance companies that sell "child-only" health plans - as well as individually purchased family plans that cover dependents - cannot deny coverage to anyone under the age of 19 because of a health condition. They also can't exclude care associated with a pre-existing medical condition.

Several high-profile business names, such as San Francisco hedge-fund manager Thomas Steyer and agribusiness magnate Stewart Resnick, have contributed to a proposed ballot measure seeking tighter regulation of health insurance rates, according to campaign finance records. These contributions were among $1.5 million in donations reported Monday to the California Secretary of State by Consumer Watchdog, the Santa Monica group leading the ballot drive. A coalition of insurers, hospitals, doctors and business groups opposing the measure has reported $367,200 in donations.

A free Caribbean cruise -- and all you have to do is participate in a brief phone and online survey. Sweet! I received just such a call on my office line a few days ago and eagerly dove in. Who wouldn't want a two-day, two-night, all-inclusive cruise to the Bahamas? First I had to respond to a series of automated questions. What's my gender? What's my age group? Do I speak Spanish? Is anyone in my household a diabetic? Am I a homeowner? Do I use a credit card when I make purchases?

If in the past you tried to buy health insurance for a child with a preexisting health condition and were turned down, it's time to give it another shot. A provision of the federal health reform law and a new California law punish insurers that refuse to sell policies to children. As a result, those younger than 19 will have access to insurance and cannot be denied coverage, regardless of health condition. Jan. 1 marked the start of California's initial open enrollment period, which runs through March 1. During this time, parents can purchase health benefits for their children on the individual insurance market without fear of being denied or of significant increases to monthly premiums for kids with preexisting conditions.

WASHINGTON — U.S. consumers and employers will receive about $1.3 billion in rebates from insurance companies this year, according to a new study quantifying a key early benefit of the healthcare law that President Obama signed in 2010. That will translate to a few dollars to more than $150 apiece for nearly 16 million consumers nationwide, the report by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found. Obama's healthcare law requires insurers to spend a minimum portion of customers' premiums on medical care.