AmeriHealth

<p>Due to a possible change in our current medical insurance plan, we may need to change companies so we are taking a proactive approach and are looking at options now. My husband asked me to look into this company. </p>

<p>Is anyone familiar with AmeriHealth? Anyone used it?
Can anyone point me to a site that reviews medical insurance plans?</p>

<p>As always, you help is very appreciated!</p>

<p>I am not familiar with this company.</p>

<p>Go to your state Department of Insurance website. They will have plans to compare.</p>

<p>sounds like you are getting the same shaft as we did…did you have BCBS of NJ ? Amerihealth is owned by them. We have it now since BC pushed us out and made it impossible to stay with them.
I can’t tell you yet if they are good or bad since I have just recently used it or the first time. I am a little bitter at BC for what they did to us so I am not that happy that we pretty much got forced into this or not have insurance at all</p>

<p>^^ Anthem never does anything unless: 1) It will improve their bottom line; or 2) A legislature or a court ordered them to. I’m more than a little bitter about this evil company. I wish we could escape, but we’re trapped by pre-existing conditions.</p>

<p>OP, one extremely important question: If you change to AmeriHealth or any other company, will the new company underwrite the subscriber? Will they underwrite dependents? If so, the actual premium will probably be higher than the rate quoted on the website, possibly a lot higher.</p>

<p>lje62,
Crystal ball?? Yes, we have Horizon BCBS. We don’t yet know if we will be pushed out as what we have heard is a rumor from an insurance rep, but we want to be prepared. I had no idea that Amerihealth is owed by BCBS.</p>

<p>So, I’m really confused why you can’t stay with BCBS but they then let you buy insurance from another company that they own. Seems really odd to me, but then just about everything related to medical insurance seems odd to me.</p>

<p>LasMa,
I don’t understand your reference to Anthem. (“Anthem never does anything unless: 1) It will…”)
Are you comparing it to BCBS? Frankly, I think they are all somewhat evil.</p>

<p>Thank you for you point about underwriting. Now I’ll go look that up since I don’t understand what that means. Insurance is an area where I’m well out of my depth of understanding - but I’m trying.</p>

<p>Underwriting means that they get to comb through your past medical records, going back years. It doesn’t take much to get a “rating” – an increase in the premium. </p>

<p>The last time we looked at trying to get better coverage for my DH, they uncovered the shocking fact that he had been diagnosed with high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Both are well-controlled with diet and medication, but that doesn’t matter. Blue Cross said his premium would be 50% over the advertised rate, because of these two “pre-existing conditions.” </p>

<p>Anthem is a for-profit business, and its mission is NOT to provide a quality, affordable product to its customers. Its mission is to make money. Every decision it makes, every rate hike, every cut in benefits, every denial of claims has one goal: to increase its profits. And it does a fabulous job at that, anyway – almost $2 billion in 2010. </p>

<p>Anthem is the biggest, and the one I’ve been stuck with for 20 years. But yes, I think that any company which gets rich by refusing to pay the medical claims of sick people is evil. To me, Anthem is symbolic of the whole rotten industry.</p>

<p>According to our insurance company , this was the first step in the new laws for health care nationally ( which I am not a supporter of ) We were with BCBS for many years from our small business. Long story short , they told us they no longer wanted to deal with small groups such as ours , but they were going to roll us into another " equal plan " .They set up a series of hoops for me to jump thru which were impossible. Basically they were trying to force us to offer insurance to employees when we could barely hold onto our own…not to mention that the majority of our employees are seasonal , have coverage thru either a spouse or parent.
Welcome to the future of healthcare in the US</p>

<p>bookreader - we have AmeriHealth which was our best choice as a sole-proprietor/LLC, switched over from Oxford a few years back when they switched individual plan holders to a “lower plan”. AmeriHealth is fine - a little worse in service than Oxford but in the end, they pay. For us, since we are individual family subscribers - there is a clear rate table based on age which gave us no surprises at renewal until this yr when the rate shot up $500 (they claimed something about people “using” the insurance too much?) - so we have switched down no rx coverage. I checked into our options with other cos and either they don’t have our drs. or they are more expensive, so…we are still with AmeriHealth. We are stuck because we don’t have a corp or even a small business to lobby for us.</p>

<p>Insurance is a business. Why should it surprise anyone that insurance companies do things to increase their profits? This motivation does not benefit their patients because they make money by charging higher premiums or denying services.</p>

<p>This is exactly why I favor national health coverage with a single payer. Then we just eliminate the profit margin from the equation. People should be guaranteed a basic floor of health coverage. (People who then want to pay more can get Cadillac coverage.)</p>

<p>While I do not attribute this motivation to anyone on this board, I believe some people who oppose national health coverage think that people who can’t afford, or can’t acquire, insurance should just go without health coverage.</p>

<p>Bookreader-
Anthem is one of the BCBS parent companies. BCBS is a conglomerate of 38 separate individual (state) and group owned (eg Anthem/Wellpoint, CareFirst, Highmark, etc) under one Association, headquartered in Chicago. THey have done soem pretty egregious stuff in several states, and are watching the reaction/pushback before they try it elsewhere.</p>

<p>Thank you - each of you who responded. I know that</p>

<p>I am not alone when I say this this subject gives me a headache and makes me feel incredibly stupid as I wrestle with understanding it. but I have come to understand that I have difficulty understanding this subject because so much of it just does not make sense. Help me understand this: I’m willing to pay you over a thousand dollars a month for a product that I rarely use but you, in your wisdom, have decided that you need to make more money off of me and to meet that goal, you are willing to push me out of your company. What???</p>

<p>amandakayak, My husband is a sole proprietor/LLC. Right now I am listed as an ‘employee’ as this was allowed when we began with this company. We specifically checked. The rumor is that they are going to discontinue allowing this. I have no idea why. It’s not as if they are losing even a dime on our policy. We currently do not have Rx coverage, so it wouldn’t be much difference for us if the new policy did not have it. </p>

<p>We did the math one year comparing the cost of Rx coverage to the cost of the medicines we take (almost none) and decided that we’d come out ahead if we paid out of pocket for our Rxs. </p>

<p>Thank your for telling me about your experiences with this company. That is exactly what I was looking for.</p>

<p>jym626
Thank you for taking the time to explain that to me.</p>

<p>Bookreader - I used to be that employee too but even now with 2-3 employees, you can only get what individuals can buy. We used to have Oxford Freedom - loved it. Now you can only buy Oxford Liberty which costs more than AmeriHealth and just has the low-end providers - none of my drs. take it for some reason. When the rate went up this yr we shopped around and there is nothing. Feel powerless. The other thing is we now have limits to coverage - $x in specialist visits, etc. - which is the stuff you don’t predict that you buy insurance for to begin with!</p>

<p>My pleasure, bookreader. From what I have heard, small companies used to be able to have a family member as an “employee” even if that family member was doing only cursory things for the business. And with that you used to be able to get a “group” rate instead of an individual + family member(s) rate, which I believe is more expensive. But I have heard they are tightening up on this.</p>

<p>That is exactly the problem jym. I am considered an employee and in truth, I do some things for my husband - stuff that frees him up to be billable so what I do directly helps the bottom line of his company. </p>

<p>This kind of change puts a huge pall over running a small business. We all need health care but it is becoming the case where you must work for a company that offers it. Most small businesses will go under at this rate.</p>

<p>Amandakayak,
I’m confused. Earlier you said that you had AmeriHealth but in your last post, you say that you have Oxford Liberty. Do you no longer have AmeriHealth?</p>

<p>bookreader, you might want to get a broker. He/she will be able to help you with this important and complicated decision. Some of us are all too familiar with the insurance-shopping process and we’re glad to tell you about our experiences. But you’ll also want to get some guidance from someone based on all the facts of your situation.</p>