Good Day All! As part of my promise to you, I guaranteed that I would keep you up-to-date on a number of insurance issues that could impact our profession in any number of ways. Today's menu includes updates and interesting tidbits on the following areas:
- The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), AKA "ObamaCare"
- The New Zealand Earthquake Story: Insured Losses?
- Product Liability gets Supreme Court Ruling
- First-ever Civil Fines for HIPAA violations
- Minnesota Considering a "Cheeseburger Law" like 23 Other States
Read on for the stories!
First of all, news about the PPACA. Nothing big-time in terms of "new" news, but did you know that almost half of America believes that the PPACA has been repealed? A new poll finds that many Americans believe the health care reform law has been repealed or aren't sure, according to a new poll conducted by The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
A National Underwriter news article sourced a Kaiser Health News' Daily Report that publishes information compiled from a summary of health policy coverage from more than 300 news organizations, and the report is somewhat surprising. Did you know that 22% of Americans think the law has been repealed and that 26% of Americans "aren't sure" of the bill's status? Interesting article!
The New Zealand earthquake that occurred recently has shaken New Zealand but won't cause any real issues for the insurance or reinsurance markets. According to BusinessInsurance.com, despite causing approximately $9 billion (U.S.) in damages, the deadly earthquake is "unlikely to affect the global reinsurance market" according to the article.
The U.S. Supreme Court has expanded liability for automobile manufacturers and restricted it for vaccine manufacturers in separate decisions earlier this month dealing with product liability. In Delbert Williamson, et al. vs. Mazda of America, Inc., the high court ruled that federal safety regulations do not pre-empt lawsuits brought against car makers that installed lap-only seat belts. But in Russell et al. vs. Wyeth L.L.C., the court held that the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 pre-empts all design-defect claims against vaccine makers by claimants seeking compensation for injury or death caused by side effects of the vaccines.
The first-ever civil fine for violating the privacy rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has been assessed against Cignet Health of Prince George's County. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) imposed a $4.3 million fine after determining that Cignet violated 41 patients' rights by denying their requests to access their medical records. The patients filed individual complaints with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) under the HIPAA privacy rule that requires covered entities to provide patients with copies of their medical records within 30 days and no later than 60 days after the request. During the investigations, Cignet refused to respond to OCRs demands to produce the records, HHS said. Also, Cignet failed to cooperate with OCRs investigations of the complaints and produce the records in response to OCRs subpoena. In response, OCR filed a petition to enforce its subpoena in court and obtained a default judgment against Cignet on March 30, 2010. On April 7, 2010, Cignet produced the medical records, but otherwise made no efforts to resolve the complaints through informal means, according to HHS.
(What follows is courtesy of FierceCIO and the PIB thanks you!) The agency last week also wrapped up a HIPAA privacy case against Massachusetts General Hospital. The hospital agreed to pay $1 million to settle a case in which a hospital employee accidentally left documents with protected health data of 192 patients on the subway in March 2009. Under a Corrective Action Plan, it will have to designate a director of internal audit to assess compliance and issue reports to HHS for the next three years.
Cheeseburger Laws? Business Insurance has published an article in the "End Page" (click HERE for article) section that addresses the concern of fast food chains being found liable for selling their wares. Well, if you're a fast food joint in Minnesota, it looks like you will be joining 23 other states in considering (or passing) legislation that protects fast food outlets, producers, growers and a host of others involved with food and nonalcoholic beverages "intended for human consumption" from civil liability from allegations that the "long-term purchase consumption" of a food product caused weight gain, obesity or health problems.
As Minnesota Representative Dean Urdahl (R-Grove City) puts it: "If you eat too many cheeseburgers and get fat, don't sue food retailers."