Ranking insurance providers

[gwendally]

Phoebe, I just checked this link.  The two health insurance companies I have as choices are both ranked with a score of 90 and highest customer satisfaction across the board.

http://www.consumerreports.org/health/insurance/NCQA-rankings.htm?state=MA&planCategory=privateHMOBut when I went and looked at what you have available in Oklahoma, drastic

Comments

[allyphoe]

Chicken and egg, though. Why buy health insurance from a company that's going to cheat you at every opportunity? Also, I suspect net worth and availability of bankruptcy play a role. I cared a lot more about health insurance (and lots of liability coverage for auto) when I had assets.

[allyphoe]

Having now looked at the link - that's a weird selection of plans. No one I know here has HMO coverage (because HMO is code for "we don't cover that"), and none of the major PPO plans are represented on the PPO list. They aren't "plan not reporting." They just aren't there at all.

[allyphoe]

Right - what disincentivizes free riders? It ain't paying for insurance that's going to decline to pay for anything at all on the grounds that you forgot to report your visit to the doc for a headache 20 years ago, and that headache was a migraine that unmasked your risk for cardiac disease so no, your heart attack isn't covered...

[gwendally]

In Massachusetts we have an insurance commission that hears appeals.

Is it a matter of corruption? Your state insurance regulators turn a blind eye because of bribes?

[oscarmama]

That was me, btw. :)

Odds are it's a matter of regulations with teeth. The more libertarian-minded states don't really regulate. It's all caveat emptor.

Certainly fraud was the case in Arizona, where, for example, we had Renzi writing regulations: http://www.arizonadailyindependent.com/2013/10/29/renzi-sentenced-to-36-months-for-extortion-bribery/

[oscarmama]

I can't find the original of this, from KFF in 2007, but here is a summary of the regulations in place before ACA: http://www.insurancecompanyrules.org/pages/arizona_rules/

[gwendally]

I was glad you put that KFF link up on Facebook. I sometimes forget that people aren't evaluating things from evidence the way WE are. But, uh, yeah, if your info is coming from Fox News perhaps you should spend some time on KFF.

[oscarmama]

Most people are quite sketchy about all of this - and like you, I tend to forget this. :)

I've also been following this guy, who is involved somehow on the actuarial end of things: http://www.balloon-juice.com/author/richard-mayhew/