Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, along with Aetna, controls more than half of the health-insurance market in the Lakeland-Winter Haven area, a microcosm of their dominance statewide.
Increasing consolidation of health-insurance coverage - nationwide as well as in Florida - stifles competition and caused premiums in Florida to grow more than three times faster than wages from 2000 to 2007, a coalition of health care advocates said in a teleconference Wednesday. They released a report criticizing dwindling choices for consumers and calling for a greater government role in expanding competition.
Health Care for America Now wants health care reform to include a public insurance plan, which it said could make insurance more affordable and guarantee better coverage. Linking itself to the ongoing national health-care debates, it said President Barack Obama and more than 190 members of Congress support its principles for reform.
Blue Cross has 45 percent of the Winter Haven-Lakeland market and Aetna 12 percent, according to the report. Those major insurers have 45 percent of the Florida market, it said, quoting statistics from a 2007 American Medical Association comparison.
Blue Cross has the largest market share in 16 of 19 Florida metro areas listed. United Health Group has the largest share in the other three, including the Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater area.
Health Care for America Now blamed much of the cost increases in Florida on having a handful of private companies dominate the market.
Nationwide, the reform campaign is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the impact of 400 insurance company mergers in the past 13 years, which its representatives say produced a widespread lack of meaningful competition.
“The rising cost of health care is bankrupting our families and small businesses,” said Justin Berrier, a policy research fellow at the Institute for America’s Future, speaking at the teleconference in support of increased competition.
“A public insurance option would force insurers to work more competitively.”
But the insurance industry contends rising costs for hospital care, physician charges and medicine - not lack of competition among insurance companies - are why insurance costs keep increasing.
“Their analysis is a bogus analysis,” said Susan Pisano, vice president of communications for America’s Health Insurance Plans in Washington D.C. “The report has a preordained conclusion that does not hold up to scrutiny.”
Responding to the request for a Department of Justice review, she said the United States’ anti-trust laws are “designed to protect consumers, not advance a political agenda.”
For family health insurance coverage in Florida, the average annual combined premium for employers and employees increased from $6,812 to $11,720 from 2000 to 2007, according to the Health Care for America Now report. The average worker’s share of the premium grew 94 percent, it said.
Health insurance premiums in Florida skyrocketed by 72 percent from 2000 to 2007, said Sean Shaw, Florida’s insurance consumer advocate, mentioning specific rate increases by Blue Cross and Aetna as examples. He said the system needs reform.
A Blue Cross spokesman said its response to the report will be released today.
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