California now provides what it calls the nation's "first interactive, consumer-friendly PPO Report Card," one to four-star rating of five of the six preferred provider organizations in the state. Issued by California Department of Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, the online ranking gave the highest marks this year, only three stars-or "good"-to CIGNA, Health Net of California, and Aetna. Anthem Blue Cross and United Healthcare of California received two stars, signifying "fair."

MINNEAPOLIS----UnitedHealthcare, a UnitedHealth Group company, has been named the “Best Health Plan Provider” by the readers of Business Insurance in the magazine’s fifth annual Readers Choice Awards.

OTTAWA, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- The cost of healthcare in Canada is forecast to rise 5.5 percent to $183 billion this year, the Canadian Institute for Health Information said Thursday. OTTAWA, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- The cost of healthcare in Canada is forecast to rise 5.5 percent to $183 billion this year, the Canadian Institute for Health Information said Thursday.

Diarrhea and pneumonia kill an estimated 3.5 million kids under 5 each year globally — more than HIV and malaria combined.

Aetna Not Alone In Layoffs As Other Insurers Also Pare Jobs Wall Street Journal WellPoint Inc. (WLP) has eliminated jobs over the past several weeks, although the managed-care giant isn't providing any numbers or making any kind of ... By: Zacks Equity Research Zacks.com tutte le notizie (2) »

Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, was joined by other Democrats as he discussed the Senate’s health care plan at a news conference on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.Senator Harry Reid put forward his version of the health care overhaul, promising it would reduce the deficit while covering most of the uninsured.

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Sun Life Financial Inc. President Jon Boscia said the U.S. insurance market is “fragmented,” allowing Canada’s third-largest insurer to expand there.

©2009 Google Philadelphia Inquirer Aetna cuts 60 workers in Blue Bell today, 1350 in US by March Philadelphia Inquirer The cuts follow 530 buyouts at Independence Blue Cross and its affiliates in Philadelphia. IBC says the departures were voluntary, but workers have told me ... and more »

"House Republicans want the AARP to rescind its endorsement of comprehensive health reform legislation after a government report showed it could cause some providers to stop accepting Medicare patients," CongressDaily reports. The report, issued by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "warned some Medicare beneficiaries could lose access to providers if the House bill becomes law.

Health Net healthcare data breach affects1.5 million SearchSecurity.com It is the second time in a month that a healthcare provider lost customer data. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Connecticut reported a stolen laptop ... 1.5 Million Medical Files At Risk In Health Net Data Breach Hartford Courant all 71 news articles »

Germany's century-old universal healthcare system is a model cited by reform advocates in the U.S. Congress, but it is buckling under the weight of a growing deficit that has forced the government to explore an overhaul. Under the German system, everyone is obliged to pay into the system and all who need care can get it. Costs are shared between employers and workers, whose premiums are staggered according to income. Recently, however, the costs of the system have exploded: Rising medical costs and unemployment will leave the system $11.1 billion short in 2010. Germany's sinking birth rate and rapidly aging population mean the gap will only get worse, the Wall Street Journal reports.

In the second of a three-part series, Dr John Sullivan compiles a comprehensive list of retention strategies that corporate leaders can employ

Madoff Was 'Smooth as Silk' Says His Insurance Broker BNET But when he did buy it, he was “smooth as silk,” says his insurance broker . In this tell-all era, everyone from former vice presidential candidate Sarah ...

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has issued new guidelines suggesting women should wait until 50 to begin routine mammograms for breast cancer early detection in a front page story in today's Houston Comical.  It seems that false positives are very expensive you see and the costs outweigh the benefits involved unless it happens to be you or your mother, wife, daughter, aunt, girlfriend or sister. The task force also recommends against teaching breast self-examination because no data exists to show it reduces deaths. That would be news to many women including my best friends wife who recently detected a lump which turned out to be malignant breast cancer. I suppose if you are a professional athlete wearing pink the last few weeks you were duped and 25 years of messaging to raise awareness was pointless? The timing of such an announcement during breast cancer awareness month is suspect and at a time when healthcare reform awaits a senate vote is simply outright stupid. Yet it does foretell what ...

States in New England top a new set of rankings, while the South still lags. At Forbes

Entering into the annual year-end holiday season creates challenges for you as a company and as an individual. Now is the time to think about what makes sense for both you and your company this year. Employers will deal with a large number of employees seeking to use paid vacation time and paid holiday time; managing a schedule to avoid vacation downtime is tough. These ideas should help.

On the personal level, you can have a stress-free holiday season if you pay attention to

©2009 Google Insurance Cruelty Exposed: 12-Year-Old Denied More Coverage Common Dreams (press release) A spokesman for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan said the insurance company could not comment on individual cases. Health care legislation pending in ... and more »

Given the discouraging and often appalling level of debate on health insurance in America, it was refreshing to view the PBS Frontline broadcast “Sick Around the World,” a documentary that dispassionately analyzed different health care systems from five developed countries: Britain, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland. The program originally aired during the presidential campaign of 2008, but, given the current...

select the right health plan for yourself and your family. If you have more than one health insurance plan to choose from, start by comparing the costs, benefits, providers, and quality of each heal...

Employers who pushed retention to the sideline may soon need to revisit it because 56 per cent of employees said they know “quite a few” people who are now looking to change jobs, according to recruitment firm Hays.

One of the worst things about the current economic downturn is the sense that we might as well throw out what we think we know, based on our experience with previous downturns. In the past, layoffs often preceded productivity increases and efficiency

BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- Lincoln National Corp.'s chief executive on Tuesday said the company doesn't expect to perform a capital-raising transaction that would dilute earnings when it refinances the $950 million it borrowed from the government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The financial-services company said it expects to fully repay the government's TARP investment by the second half of 2010 or the first half of 2011, Dennis Glass said at an investor conference Tuesday. Lincoln has already cut its dividend and raised equity capital to boost its balance sheet during the credit... At MarketWatch

Premier workers who smoke face $500+ health care surcharge Dayton Daily News DAYTON — Premier Health Partners employees who smoke or chew tobacco, ... and more »

MVP Raising Rates 12 to 25 Percent 13WHAM-TV ... a spike in swine flu cases as reasons for the rate hike. Earlier this month, Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield announced an increase in its rates for 2010. MVP announces double-digit premium rate hikes in the Rochester area Rochester Democrat and Chronicle ...

Uninsured patients with traumatic injuries, such as car crashes, falls, and gunshot wounds, were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance, according to a new study. The findings by Harvard University researchers surprised doctors and health experts who have believed emergency room care was equitable. The researchers couldn't pin down the reasons behind the differences they found. The uninsured might experience more delays being transferred from hospital to hospital. Or they might get different care. Or they could have more trouble communicating with doctors. The hospitals that treat them also could have fewer resources.

Government already is our No. 1 insurer, and that's OK Minneapolis Star Tribune The public, according to polls, also favors a "public option," kind of a mini-Medicare that could negotiate rates with providers just as my healthpartners ... and more »

The family's policy with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan covers a maximum of $30000 per lifetime for prosthetics, plus $1000 per year for repairs. In states such as Colorado and Maryland, the law says there can be no such cap on ...

"Goldman Sachs recently did a report analyzing the impact of health reform on Cigna Aetna WellPoint , UnitedHealth and Humana . While the study concludes that insurers would profit from undermining health care reform, the report also ...

The government paid more than $47 billion in questionable Medicare claims including medical treatment showing little relation to a patient's condition.

Andy Cobb starred in TV commercials pitching health insurance for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida -- until he had a crisis of conscience. "In some gigs, in rare cases, you're forced to come to terms with the moral content of your commercial," he ... Since intellectual property laws more or less guarantee that there won't be any generic equivalents to the name-brand HAART drugs that I must take (over $2000 a month worth) BCBS will only cover about 60% of that cost, ...

Recent research has found an intriguing connection between the degree to which grandmothers are genetically related to their grandchildren and how much they give their grandkids an evolutionary edge.

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) will become effective next week (Nov. 21), and Stephen Greenhouse at the New York Times has an overview. Among the changes we'll see soon: The most important new antidiscrimination law in two decades —...

Excerpt: "Covered entities (CEs) should review and update their policies on cell phones and cameras and make the rules clear and highly visible to employees, patients and visitors . . . . Technology and social networking sites are simple to use and very widespread. A person can take a picture with an iPhone and post it to his or her Facebook page in an instant." (AISHealth.com)

MMC pays $428 million in compensation Financial Standard - 11 minutes ago Marsh & McLennan Companies, which owns consultant Mercer, has agreed to pay $428 million (US$400 million) in settlement for a lawsuit filed six years ago that accused the firm of breaking ...

HOUSTON—Thirteen months after its inception, Marsh & McLennan Agency L.L.C. embarked on its growth-by-acquisition strategy last week with the purchase of Houston-based agency Insurance Alliance.

Metapsychology How would government-run health insurance affect California? San Jose Mercury News ... Anthem Blue Cross ' parent company, WellPoint, and United Healthcare oppose the public option; Kaiser Permanente and Blue Shield , which both operate as ... ...