Happy Hour Hiatus

I have had numerous people ask me about the status of my Acupuncture Happy Hours that I was holding weekly on Wednesdays at Casa de Tree during the latter 6 months of 2009. I was going to resume in late February/early March of this year once the days became slightly longer, allowing for more light in the cafe which tended to have a darker mood lighting at night. Unfortunately, I found out that Casa de Tree has shut down operations as the owners are returning to Japan this year.

So for now, I'm sorry fans, my Acupuncture Happy Hour is going to be on indefinite hiatus until I can find a new location. Come back periodically to the Iyashi Wellness website for updates on this.

Good insurance news - for now

A moment of reprieve for Anthem Blue Cross insurance holders here in California. The State Insurance Commissioner has been able to secure a delay in the spike of premium increases until May 1st. This will allow outside health-insurance actuarial experts to investigate whether Anthem has violated any California law with its implementation of increases rates.

Let's hope the Commission can come to a long term agreement based on this analysis to minimize future insurance rate increases.

39% insurance premium increase

Several news agencies have written about premium increases being placed on policyholders of Anthem Blue Cross here in California. The purported increase can be as high as 39% for some holders, even with Blue Cross' parent company, Well Point, seeing profits soaring at $2.7 billion just in the last quarter of 2009. Nonetheless, the company is citing increases in health care costs as their reason for rate increases. (An ironic note made by my colleage Dr. Kevin McNamee: Even with all these profits, Blue Cross has paid the same out of network rates to healthcare providers since the 1990s.)

Unfortunately, there's not much we as insurance holders can do, because it was Congress who in the early 1990s allowed health insurance providers to become For Profit. So even though the Obama administration is looking into this, until Congress and the Senate require insurance providers to become not for profit, there's very little we policy holders can do about these insurance hikes.

I encourage you, especially if you are an Anthem Blue Cross member, to speak to your insurance broker to see if moving to a different insurance company would be a smarter choice. Also, speak to your Congressional representative and Senator to require insurance companies to become non-profit again. Power in numbers