The health care reform package being finalized by Congressional Democrats and the White House is chock full of benefits for specific states and interest groups. Some of that is inevitable in any legislation, regardless of the party in power. But the health care reform bill is widely viewed as an extreme example – we’re talking cotton candy level on the sweetness scale.

Now a Democratic Senator is trying to tone down the glucose level of the health care reform bill. Senator Russ Feingold has sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi requesting that “sweeteners” be removed from the final health care bill, January 14, 2010 “originally inserted to win over the support of certain members of Congress.” In the letter, Senator Feingold recognizes that there are “valid policy or fairness reasons why certain states or interests may receive seemingly different treatment.” However, he specifically cites “unmerited Medicaid assistance to certain states and carve-outs to avoid cuts to certain Medicare Advantage plans” he describes as “indefensible.” These provisions, he charges, “are intended to provide an undeserved windfall to specific states” and should be removed from the health reform bill.

Senator Feingold is right, both from a public policy perspective and from a political view. Both Democrats and Republicans engage in the practice of securing votes by inserting provisions into bills aimed at benefiting a specific Senator’s home state. That’s the American way. Really, it is.

But health care reform is complicated, controversial and sensitive. Hyper-sensitive. This is an issue that has generated charges of the American government threatening to kill old people, death threats against members of Congress, and outrageous hyperbole that only the CFO’s at Fox News and MSNBC could love. More significantly, this legislation is also going to impact every American in a highly personal way and significantly impact one-sixth of the nation’s economy. An issue like this should not be subjected to politics as usual. Removing the sweeteners makes sense.

Not that anyone asked, but I don’t think the deal struck yesterday with the unions yesterday falls into the sweetener category (at least not what we know so far. Apparently the deal postpones a tax on rich health plans until 2018, but only for coverage required by labor agreements and for state and local government workers. The compromise also removes vision and dental plans from the calculation of the value of a plan and raises the threshold for taxation from $23,000 for family coverage to $24,000. There are also adjustments for older workers and women.

The reason why I don’t view this deal as a pay-off for union support is because the nature of union agreements means a transition period make sense. Collective bargaining agreements have been made pursuant to the rules in effect today. These rules encourage unions to trade-off wage increases for enhanced (and more expensive) health benefits. To now change the rules without allowing time for new negotiations seems a bit unfair. Whether five years is needed for the transition or a shorter period of time would be sufficient is a level of detail I can’t address.

The same logic should apply to whatever mandated medical loss ratios wind up in the final bill. Health care reform is likely to require health plans to spend a minimum of 80 percent (for individual and small group coverage; 85 percent for large group plans) on claims payments. The legislation passed by the Senate would impose this requirement effective January 1, 2011. yet health plans have contracts in place with brokers, vendors and others that were made under the old rules. To now change those rules and impose spending requirements is both unfair and impractical. The disruption and pain resulting from failing to provide an adequate transition to mandated medical loss ratios will be felt not just by brokers and insurers, but by consumers and voters as well.

Should President Obama, Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi eliminate the political sweeteners in the health care reform legislation they’re writing? Yes. Should they eliminate transition periods that ease the transition to the new world they’re creating? Yes. And those transition period should be offered to unions and health plans.

State Farm health insurance has teamed up with Humana in an alliance to offer Medicare Prescription Drug Plans, also known as Medicare Part D.  Humana’s Medicare Prescription Drug Plans offers guidance on how to save money on your prescriptions.  They make it easy for you to keep track of prescription costs.  They offer a SmartSummary RxSM statement which shows what you bought and the varying costs.

It’s benefits like these that make State Farm and Humana Medicare supplement insurance plans unique.  Humana offers 3 stand alone Medicare Prescription Drug Plans to help balance your health insurance budget.  In today’s economy and so many pinching pennies, this benefit proves extremely valuable.

State Farm and Humana have joined to market Medicare Advantage plans as well.  This type of plan combines the benefit of prescription drug coverage with the Medicare health coverage in one convenient plan.  They offer additional benefits when compared to Original Medicare.

According to the Humana Big Book commercial, signing up for Humana’s medicare program can be as easy as 3 steps.  Upon viewing their website it’s really true.

Obtaining Humana insurance quotes online has always been relatively simple, but now the company is marketing strong their Medicare programs.  With more and more Medicare eligible consumers becoming internet savvy, more programs are encouraging shopping around online.  Humana claims to have a wide array of plans so you are bound to find one that will fit your needs.  On their website you can easily compare Medicare Advantage plans, compare prescription drug plans, review plan features and enroll online instantly if you choose to do so.

Now is the perfect time for marketing Medigap supplemental insurance plans because the time period for changing Medicare Advantage plans or prescription plans for ‘10 is January 1 through March 31.  This holds true unless you recently became eligible for Medicare or if you have certain special circumstances.

Both sides abandoned bi-partisanship concerning health care reform a long, long time ago. Now it’s official, as these things go.

With both chambers having passed a version of comprehensive health care reform the bills are headed for a House-Senate conference committee. Usually this committee, made up of both Democrats and Republicans, iron out differences between the two proposals and produces something both the House and Senate can be expected to pass.

There are a lot of formal, procedural issues involved in this process. Usually, for example, three formal votes need to be held in both the Senate and the House before the conference committee formally convenes. Since each vote can be filibustered in the Senate, Democrats would need to bring all 60 members of its caucus to the floor for each of these votes. Then, at least in the Senate (I’m not sure about the House) there can be votes on non-binding recommendations to the conference committee members. As noted in an Associated Press article, this would “require Democrats to vote on political controversies such as wiping out the legislation’s proposed cuts in Medicare ….” As 2010 is an election year, this is a political weapon Democrats would prefer to keep out of the hands of the GOP.

So, according to the AP article, Democrats in Congress, along with the White House, are intent on bypassing the traditional conference committee procedures, reducing the opportunity for the GOP to force embarrassing votes or to delay a final version of health care reform legislation. I don’t pretend to be an expert on Congressional procedures, so I can’t explain how this is done or why it’s permitted. But the “why” and “how” is less important than the fact of it.

What this means is that negotiations over the final version of health care reform will be conducted solely among Democrats. This was going to happen anyway as there is no common ground between the parties on the legislation. As a result, the votes of Democratic moderates become even more clearly critical to passage of the reform legislation. It also means that Congress is far more likely to achieve its goal of putting health care reform legislation on President Barack Obama’s desk before his State of the Union address anticipated to be given in early February.

Republicans will still be vocal on health care reform. They’ll still seek to delay the legislation. Their task, however, will now be much more difficult.

PacificSource Health Plans has acquired Clear One Health Plans for $46 Million.  Under the merger agreement, Clear One will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Eugene Oregon based PacificSource.

The merger will allow PacificSource to increase its presence in Central Oregon and expand into the Medicare and Medicaid markets through Clear One Health Plans  operation while continuing to devote energy towards PacificSource’s commercial health insurance business.

The deal still requires approval by the Oregon Insurance Division, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Oregon Division of Medical Assistance Programs, as well as final shareholder approval.

Bend Oregon based Clear One provides health insurance, including Medicare Advantage plans, commercial plans, individual health insurance plans as well as administrative services to individuals and businesses throughout the West.

After the merger, PacificSource Health Plans is expected to cover about 228,000 members and PacificSource TPA about 80,000. Employer clients are expected to total 5,676 and 303 respectively.