Health Care Reform Articles - October 12, 2011

October 11, 2011

In Seeking Rate Increases in New York, Health Insurers Fight to Keep Secrets

By NINA BERNSTEIN

Major health insurance companies seeking steep premium increases in New York have submitted memos to state officials to justify the higher rates. Now they are fighting to keep the memos from the public, saying they include trade secrets that competitors could use against them.

“How these companies are setting these rates is vital for the public to know, and should not be treated like a state secret,” Benjamin M. Lawsky, the state superintendent of financial services, said on Tuesday. “Transparency will promote healthy competition and enable the public to rigorously comment on proposed rates, two goals that all of us should favor.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/nyregion/health-insurers-ask-to-keep-rate-increase-data-secret.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

October 11, 2011

When the Talk Turns to Taxes and Medicine

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM and JACKIE CALMES

A major source of contention at Tuesday night’s debate was Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan, which is basically a pair of proposals: deep cuts in the existing federal taxes on individual and corporate income, both of which would be reduced to a flat rate of 9 percent from existing rates that run above 30 percent, combined with a new 9 percent national sales tax.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/us/politics/9-9-9-plan-psa-tests-and-tax-holidays-debated-by-republicans.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

OCTOBER 11, 2011, 8:30 PM

Finally Making Sense on Wall Street

By MARK BITTMAN

Mark Bittman on food and all things related.

Tags:

activism, Occupy Wall Street

Countercultures and alternative systems can be nurturing, educational, illuminating, inspiring — and these are not small things — but they do not bring about fundamental change. Food co-ops, for example, make a difference, but they won’t much alter the way Big Food operates. Historically, the route to fixing broken systems goes through struggle, confrontation and even revolution.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/finally-making-sense-on-wall-street/?pagemode=print

Blue Cross to remain nonprofit public charity

By Robert Weisman 

GLOBE STAFF  

  OCTOBER 12, 2011

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has decided to remain a nonprofit public charity after examining whether it should seek a different legal status given its extensive business operations as the state’s largest health insurer.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2011/10/11/blue-cross-remain-nonprofit-public-charity/iJBiGPBHZV4C0bLAN9U3HM/story.html