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Must Read Inside Dope On Big Insurance’s Lobbying Efforts

From The Huffington Post:

By Wendell Potter

10/31/11 08:53 AM ET

If you have no idea what you’re paying good money for when you enroll in a health insurance plan, there’s a good reason for that: insurers profit from your ignorance. And they’re waging an intense behind-the-scenes campaign to keep you in the dark.

In my first appearance before Congress after leaving the insurance industry, I told members of the Senate Commerce Committee that insurers intentionally make it all but impossible for consumers to find out in advance of buying a policy exactly what is covered and what isn’t and how much they’ll be on the hook for if they get sick or injured. Insurers are quite willing to provide you with slick marketing materials about their policies, but those materials are notoriously skimpy when it comes to useful information. And the documents they provide after you enroll are so dense few of us can understand them. (more…)

Health Officials Move To Loosen State Requirements

By Noam N. Levey–July 12, 2011

Washington— The Obama administration moved Monday to ease some requirements on states to help them set up new insurance exchanges in 2014, a key feature of the healthcare law the president signed last year.The state-based exchanges are intended to make buying health insurance comparable to shopping the Internet for an airline ticket or a hotel room. And by 2019, the exchanges are expected to provide insurance for an estimated 24 million Americans who don’t get their health insurance from their employer, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Small employers with fewer than 100 workers also will be able to use the exchanges, which will have to offer plans with a minimum level of coverage. No plans will be able to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

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