Anthem Blue Cross, a subsidiary of WellPoint Inc., has been under fire for a week from regulators and politicians for notifying some of its 800,000 individual policyholders in California that it plans to raise rates by up to 39 percent March 1.

The Anthem Blue Cross plan in Maine is asking for increases of about 23 percent this year for some individual policyholders. Last year, they raised rates up to 32 percent.

Kansas had one recent case where one insurer wanting to raise most individual rates 20 percent to 30 percent was persuaded by state insurance officials to reduce the increases to 10 percent to 20 percent. The insurance department would not identify the company but said it was not Anthem.

And in Oregon, multiple insurers were granted rate hikes of 15 percent or more this year after increases of around 25 percent last year for customers who purchase individual health insurance, rather than getting it through their employer.

Premiums are far more volatile for individual policies than for those bought by employers and other large groups, which have bargaining clout and a sizable pool of people among which to spread risk. As more people have lost jobs, many who are healthy have decided to go without health insurance or get a bare-bones, high-deductible policy, reducing the amount of premiums insurers receive.

Steep rate hikes in this sliver of the insurance market – about 13 million Americans, as of 2008 – have popped up sporadically for years. Experts see them becoming increasingly common.

"You’re going to see rate increases of 20, 25, 30 percent" for individual health policies in the near term, Sandy Praeger, chairwoman of the health insurance and managed care committee for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, predicted Friday.

Most states don’t have the legal authority to block or reduce health insurance rate increases, Praeger noted.

"When you see stories like (Anthem’s), you can almost guarantee there’s going to be increased consumer protection activity" in state legislatures, she said.

Her group doesn’t track rates state by state, but Praeger said it likely will start doing so, "if we don’t get any kind of meaningful reform at the federal level."

Politicians and even some health insurers, including Anthem, are urging a revival of the stalled effort in Congress to overhaul the health care system, arguing everyone needs to be covered by health insurance in order to prevent such premium spikes.

In Maine, where Anthem dominates the market, its proposal has several consumer groups planning big rallies at two public hearings on the rates, on Feb. 22 and 24.

Under Anthem’s proposal, a family of four could be charged up to $1,876 per month if the proposed rates are allowed to take effect in July.

"The rate request should be denied on its face. It’s outrageous," said Greg Howard, spokesman for Maine Change That Works. "We are in the middle of … this record-breaking type of recession, and they’re doing what they need to guarantee profit margin."

On Friday, Maine House Speaker Hannah Pingree and Senate President Elizabeth Mitchell wrote to two congressmen who have scheduled a Feb. 24 hearing on Anthem’s pending rate hikes in California, asking them to also look into the proposed hike in Maine.

"We frankly have been very frustrated by the size of these increases," Pingree told The Associated Press. "Obviously, they are attempting to price certain people out of the market."

Last year, Maine’s Superintendent of Insurance Mila Kofman rejected Anthem’s initial requests, which would have increased individual rates an average of 18.5 percent. She allowed an average increase of 10.9 percent, with the highest increase at 32.4 percent.

Anthem sued the state. Oral arguments in the case are to be scheduled before the Maine Superior Court for mid-March.

Anthem spokesman Chris Dugan said Friday evening the company wants the court to review Kofman’s decision because it didn’t allow the company an operating profit. He said the rates requested for 2010 are needed "to make sure that we have adequate resources to cover the remaining members" in the insurance plans.

WellPoint, based in Indianapolis, has said it needs to raise rates so much because the weak economy has resulted in fewer people remaining in the individual market in California, and many who do have serious health problems. It says costs of caring for them have been rising due to higher provider prices and more use of diagnostic tests.

In Oregon, state insurance officials have concluded that rising costs justify the higher individual premiums, particularly because most insurers cut rates too much in 2006 and then got hit with significant losses. So double-digit increases, some 25 percent or higher, have been approved, or reduced a bit from 2007 to 2010.

Insurance Division spokeswoman Cheryl Martinis said the agency has started posting details of all proposed increases on its Webspace site and e-mailing customers want a proposal comes in so they can comment.

"People are extraordinarily upset in Oregon, as they are nationwide, about health care costs," she said.

Source Associate Press

You, of course, are the consumer. And you’re being directed to save your employer a lot of money — so much so that many employers are offering workers lucrative incentives to make the switch into a consumer-directed plan.

Should you bite? And if you don’t have a choice — General Electric, for example, is forcing 75,000 of its salaried employees in the United States to choose one of three consumer-driven options — how can you best navigate this new landscape?

via Patient Money – Making Sense of High-Deductible Health Plans – NYTimes.com.

(CNN) — German billionaire Adolf Merckle, one of the richest men in the world, committed suicide Monday after his business empire got into trouble in the wake of the international financial crisis, Merckle’s family said Tuesday in a statement.

Merckle, 74, was hit by a train in the southwestern town of Ulm, police said.

His family said the economic crisis had “broken” Merckle.

He was number 94 on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people. He had fallen from number 44 on the Forbes 2007 rich list as his fortune declined from $12.8 billion to $9.2 billion in 2008.

German billionaire kills self, family says – CNN.com

Maybe they’ll start exporting this chocolate goody to the United States, could be a best seller during this upcoming Holiday Season

The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain’s attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late ’80s and early ’90s.

Starting at noon:  http://www.keatingeconomics.com/

The Labor Department said 84,000 jobs were lost in August, significantly higher than the 75,000 that economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast. In addition, July’s job losses were revised up to 60,000 and June’s to 100,000 from a previously reported 51,000 in each month.

There were steep cuts in hiring in nearly every major category of employment. Some 61,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in August, the most for any month since mid 2003, and 8,000 more construction jobs were cut. There were 53,000 jobs eliminated in professional and business services and 4,000 in leisure and hospitality industries.

1. Lower wages: Stanford University researchers found that obese men and women earn, on average, $3.41 per hour less than their peers. Over the course of a year, that means $7,093 in lost income.
2. Fewer work hours: On average, obese workers tend to lose a week of work a year due to ailments related to their weight, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. A firm of 1,000 employees loses $285,000 a year due to obese—not overweight—employees, about 30 percent of which is attributable to increased absenteeism, according to Eric A. Finkelstein and Laurie Zuckerman‘s “The Fattening of America.”
3. Higher medical costs: Overweight males incur medical costs that are $170 more annually than their leaner co-workers, while overweight females incur costs $495 higher than their counterparts, Finkelstein and Zuckerman write. They also note that hospitals have to pay more to treat the obese—oversized wheelchairs can cost about $2,500, eight times the cost of an ordinary wheelchair, and operating tables that are strong enough to support the severely obese can top $30,000.
4. Extra air travel costs: Budget airlines such as Southwest require obese people or people who may take up more than one seat to buy an adequate number of seats on the flight. And heavier passengers burn more fuel: In the 1990s, Americans’ average weight increased by 10 pounds, which meant that airlines spent $275 million on an additional 350 million gallons of fuel to support that extra weight, according to a 2004 Centers for Disease Control report.
5. More gasoline: Obviously, more weight burns more gasoline in cars, too. A 2006 study published in the journal The Engineering Economist found that Americans pumped 938 million more gallons of fuel a year than they did in 1960 because of their heftier frames. That adds up to roughly $3.55 billion in increased annual gas expenditures nationwide.

Added note ~~ this report today from HealthDay – Obesity rate up in 37 states.

When you get to the page,  search by options – I put in state, that seemed the easiest.  Click on image below to check your bank.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The U.S. Treasury is expected to release a statement later Sunday in support of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as the latter plans an important $3 billion securities offering Monday, according to a news report.

The Wall Street Journal cited people familiar with the matter as saying that, while the statement’s exact language was not known, it is expected to express support for the firms and reassure the markets.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported Sunday that the two lenders were in talks with the Treasury, Federal Reserve and White House officials to come up with funding plans should the beleaguered mortgage companies require financing. The report also cited people with knowledge of the discussions.

Freddie is scheduled to sell $3 billion of debt Monday, and the markets could falter again if investors balk at bidding on it. The Wall Street Journal report said Treasury officials and other regulators have been calling potential buyers of the debt over the weekend to gauge their interest and to urge them to participate.

Freddie Mac tumbled 47 percent in New York Stock Exchange composite trading last week and Washington-based Fannie Mae lost 45 percent of its value, forcing U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to pledge support for the companies. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are critical for the housing market because they guarantee almost half the $12 trillion in outstanding U.S. mortgages.

After a year of record mortgage foreclosures and slumping home prices, Americans are more determined to shape up their flabby finances in 2008 than their bodies, according to a study released by Countrywide Bank on Tuesday.

Some 67 percent of the 1,002 adults surveyed nationwide said that becoming financially fit is a top New Year’s resolution, while 57 percent are committed to becoming physically fit in 2008.

This report really does not surprise me in light of the current economy and fears of a recession in 2008. However I think people can do both, work at becoming more financially solvent and physically fit. What’s the point of having a nice fat bank account if you’re too unhealthy to reap the benefits?

Maybe that should be our goal for 2008. Trim our debt and our waistline, not one or the other.