Aetna will buyout rival health insurer Humana for $37 billion

Health insurance company Aetna Inc is said to have struck a deal to purchase Humana Inc for about $37 billion, or roughly $230 per Humana share, in a cash-and-stock deal.

Humana shareholders will get $125 in cash and 0.8375 Aetna shares for each share held, an about 23% premium to the stock's closing price on Thursday. Following the deal, Aetna's shareholders would own about 74% of the combined company.

Once done the new company will boast more than 33 million members, and bring in estimated revenue of about $115 billion per year. 56% of the revenue will be from government-sponsored programs like Medicare.

Mother Billed $950,000 for Child Birth in the US

Is giving birth in the US this expensive? Toronto Sun reported about Jennifer Huculak from Saskatchewan, Canada has been billed $950,000 by a hospital in the United States for giving birth to her daughter. This happened last year October 2013, Jennifer was pregnant and having vacation with her husband Darren Kimmel in Hawaii. Then her water broke, she was airlifted from Maui to a nearby hospital in Honolulu, Huculak and was confined in the hospital for 6 weeks before giving birth to a premature baby girl named Reece. She gave birth through an emergency C-section and her child was in neonatal intensive care unit for two months before they were able to leave the hospital.

Saskatchewan Blue Cross, her insurance company said that her coverage had been denied because of a pre-existing condition that the company said that can result to high-risk pregnancy. The doctors who operated her told the insurance company that the pregnancy was healthy but still got denied.

Chao: Health Insurance Marketplace is Still Incomplete

Henry Chao the deputy chief information officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that the federal health insurance marketplace is not yet complete. He said that they are still building the “back office systems." 

“we still have to build the financial management aspects of the system, which includes our accounting system and payment system and reconciliation system,” he said. "This part is still being developed and will be tested."

He admitted Tuesday that up to 40 percent of IT systems supporting the exchange still need to be built.

The Obama government completed the online system which allowed consumers to apply for insurance, compare health plans and enroll however, many parts of the system were still being repaired and were not performing as well as they had hoped.

“It’s not that it’s not working,” Chao told lawmakers at an Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations subcommittee hearing. “It’s still being developed and tested.”

Financial management tools are not yet done, he said, particularly the process that will deliver payments to insurers.

Infographics on Why Others Can't Keep Their Old Insurance Plans

Check out the Infographics done by NYTimes, which explains why some people can't keep their insurance plans. It is very detailed and easy to comprehend. President Barrack Obama promised that people can keep their old insurance plan under the Obamacare, however the truth is most need to buy a new plan.

How to pay Health Insurance without bank accounts?

If you are a person who don't trust banks or don't want to deal with their unreasonable bank charges like overdrafts then you are in trouble, you can't pay your health insurance without a bank account.

Next January federal health law will require Americans to carry health insurance, but most health plans accepts credit cards for first month's premium then pay the succeeding monthly premiums with check or an electronic funds transfer from a checking account. To those who don't have bank accounts this will be a real problem.

I think the government should require the health insurance providers to implement a reasonable payment options for everyone.

You can read more about it here. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/05/17/184814772/latest-health-hurdle-buying-insurance-without-a-bank-account