Learn About Tableau The two insurers selling plans to Maine consumers under the Affordable Care Act want to raise rates in 2015, but well below the double-digit average hikes cropping up in some other states. The proposed rates offer a tentative first look at how much insurers seek to charge during the second year of Healthcare.gov, […]
health care
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Harvard Pilgrim to offer plan on Maine health care exchange
AUGUSTA — Three companies are expected to offer health care coverage on Maine’s federally-run exchange next year. The Maine Bureau of Insurance said on Tuesday that Harvard Pilgrim Health Care has filed to join nonprofit co-op Maine Community Health Options and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield on the state’s exchange under the federal health care […]
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Maine Community Health Options to offfer plan on New Hampshire health care exchange
LEWISTON — The nonprofit health insurance cooperative Maine Community Health Options has received preliminary approval to offer its plans in four New Hampshire counties that border Maine, where the company started and has captured nearly 80 percent of the federally required health care marketplace. The New Hampshire Department of Insurance reported Monday that it licensed […]
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Maine Medicare expenditures below national average
Maine hospitals are touting new data released by the federal government showing the state delivers health care to seniors more cost effectively than most of its counterparts. A Maine health care cost and quality organization, however, urged examining the numbers from a global perspective. On Monday, Medicare released a trove of data aimed at making […]
Posted inLocal & State
Was LePage right on Medicaid expansion? Republicans, officials divided
AUGUSTA — Officials in the state of Arkansas are saying “not so fast” to claims being made by leaders in Maine’s Republican Party that an expansion of Arkansas’s Medicaid program has led that state to fiscal crisis and Maine was wise not to expand its low-income health care program. Amy Webb, communications director for the […]
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Lewiston startup helps rural Mainers sign up for ACA coverage
Learn About Tableau Hildegard Tenney has lived nearly all her life without health insurance. A meat cutter at a supermarket in Washington County, 51-year-old Tenney could never afford coverage, so she visited the doctor only as a last resort, when she could scrape up enough cash to pay out of pocket for the visit. “There […]
Posted inBusiness, Nation / World, sj-web
Feds give go-ahead for new health cost controls; will consumers face higher bills?
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has given the go-ahead for insurers and employers to use a new cost-control strategy that puts a hard dollar limit on what health plans pay for some expensive procedures, such as knee and hip replacements. Some experts worry that such a move would surprise patients who pick more expensive hospitals. […]
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States willing to accept medicinal pot; health insurers, not so much
Patients who use medical marijuana for pain and other chronic symptoms can take an unwanted hit: Insurers don’t cover the treatment, which costs as much as $1,000 a month. Once the drug of choice for hippies and rebellious teens, marijuana in recent years has gained more mainstream acceptance for its ability to boost appetite, dull […]
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44,000 Mainers signed up on health care exchange
AUGUSTA — Maine has exceeded the federal government’s expectations with more than 44,000 residents enrolling in health insurance plans on the federal exchange. The figures released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday show that 44,258 Maine residents selected plans on the Affordable Care Act’s exchange between Oct. 1 and April […]
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Medicare releases list of provider payments
Data: List of Maine health care providers WASHINGTON — Medicare paid a tiny group of doctors $3 million or more apiece in 2012. One got nearly $21 million. Those are among the findings of an Associated Press analysis of physician data released Wednesday by the Obama administration, part of a move to open the books […]