Acupuncture Continuing Education

Forced Health Insurance Refunds for North Carolina & Colorado

Obama’s Affordable Care Act is forcing Blue Cross of North Carolina to refund an average of $700 per individual policy holder. Group plans are not affected by this refund. The total refund from Blue Cross is over $155 million. Overcharges were spotted by health insurance regulators in North Carolina who note that over 200,000 North Carolina residents are affected by the refund. The US Department of Health and Human Services has issued a statement that there may be a “bigger” issue concerning health insurance overcharges involved.

Many states with Blue Cross and Blue Shield policies may be affected but careful oversight by state regulators will be necessary to spot the required refunds. The North Carolina Insurance Commissioner urges other state regulators to initiate probes into overcharges by insurance companies now that the new federal health reform law has been passed. He notes that a significant amount of resources were necessary to discover the now illegal overcharges. In related news, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Colorado has agreed to refund $20 million to policy holders. The Colorado Division of Insurance prompted the refund because of complaints by policy holders. This affects approximately 90,000 Colorado policy holders and the complaints were in part due to Anthem’s raising of insurance rates three times within the last year. Colorado Insurance Commission Marcy Morrison explained that a probe into Anthem’s rate hikes was initiated when a spike occured in consumer complaints over rate increases. From July to November in 2009, only nine complaints were received. From December 2009 to March 2010, complaints skyrocketed to over 210 in number.

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