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07/02/2009
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Staff photo by Andy Molloyfrom the Kennebec Journal
FAIRPOINT PLAN TARGETS DEBT
Wind project off Mass. meets strong resistance
Three bills seek tougher rules for petitioners
New rules for special education debated
Happy apples
AUGUSTA: Cuts to French curriculum run into opposition
HIGH SCHOOL BOYS BASKETBALL: Hall-Dale drops MVC title game to Mountain Valley
HIGH SCHOOL HOCKEY NOTEBOOK: Different stakes in Gardiner-Winslow rivalry
All of today's:
News | Sports
from the Kennebec Journal
from the Morning Sentinel
'At the time ... he was psychotic'
Man answers door, is attacked with Mace and then robbed
FairPoint reorganization plan aims to slash company's debt
Concerns over special-education changes aired
FAIRFIELD: Clinton man, 21, arrested on rape, assault charges
Stun gun, arrest of suspect end high-speed, 2-town chase
HIGH SCHOOL HOCKEY NOTEBOOK: Gardiner, Winslow take to ice again
GIRLS BASKETBALL: Skowhegan wins KVAC A title game
All of today's:
News | Sports
from the Morning Sentinel
AUGUSTA -- Approximately 30 people dressed in black called for a major health care overhaul Wednesday in front of the Capitol Street offices of health insurer Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
The demonstrators spoke out against Anthem's operating profits and called for a government-sponsored public health insurance option -- a provision likely to be debated in Congress as part of a national health care reform package.
WellPoint, Anthem's Indianapolis-based parent company, reported net income of $580.4 million in the first quarter of 2009, compared with $588.1 million during the first quarter of 2008, according to company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company recorded total assets of $49.4 billion at the end of March, according to the filings.
Insurers such as Anthem are accruing profits, the demonstrators said, while many Maine residents go without what they said was prohibitively expensive health insurance.
The Maine People's Alliance, a liberal interest group that has pushed for single-payer health care in Maine, organized the demonstration.
"The cost of health care is tipping family budgets over the edge," the Rev. Virgil Bozeman, of the South Parish Congregational Church in Augusta, told demonstrators. "It's important that we bring fairness back into health care, and that's why we need a public option."
Debra Violette, a lung cancer survivor from Augusta, said the bureaucratic challenges she encountered from her insurance carrier while receiving cancer treatments made it nearly impossible to get the care she needed.
"Mainers are literally dying because of the lack of health care options," she said.
Anthem spokesman Chris Dugan said health insurance premiums are rising due to the rising costs of health care, not due to the company's profits.
"If we're able to reduce the rate of cost going forward, then the rate of premium increase should go down at the same time," he said.
For each dollar paid in insurance premiums, 85 to 87 cents pays for medical claims, Dugan said. Ten cents goes toward administration. The remaining three to five cents, he said, is Anthem's profit.
"There are a lot of factors that lead to health care costs going up," Dugan said. "When they see the premium rates going up, it's a reflection of health care costs."
Maine Insurance Superintendent Mila Kofman earlier this year denied a request by Anthem to raise Maine rates by an average of 18.5 percent, a change that would have affected 12,000 policy holders.
Kofman said the increases would have been excessive and unfairly discriminatory. She ultimately approved a 10.9 percent average rate increase.
Meanwhile, data released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed the percentage of Americans who don't have private health insurance hit its lowest mark in 50 years.
About 65 percent of non-elderly Americans had private insurance in 2008, down from 67 percent the year before, according to preliminary data released .
"It's bad news," said Kenneth Thorpe, a health policy researcher at Emory University.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, nearly 80 percent of Americans had private coverage, according to CDC officials.
Some experts blamed the faltering economy and corporate decisions to raise health insurance premiums -- or do away with employee coverage -- as the main drivers of the recent data.
However, public coverage of adults is rising in some states, due to programs like Medicaid expanding eligibility. So not all the adults without private coverage are uninsured, Thorpe said.
Indeed, the CDC estimated that about 44 million Americans were uninsured last year -- nearly the same as CDC estimates for other recent years.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Matthew Stone -- 623-3811, ext. 435
mstone@centralmaine.com
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