Submitted by Armen Hareyan on Dec 28th, 2005
Low-Cost Health Insurance
GenoMed, Inc. (Pink Sheets GMED) a Next Generation Disease Management company, announced that it is considering partnering to offer a low-cost health insurance product to compete for the uninsured market.
By avoiding expensive hospitalizations for diabetes, high blood pressure, and emphysema, GenoMed can already slash healthcare costs for cardiovascular disease. Two-thirds of Americans die from cardiovascular disease, and one third from cancer. With its Healthchip to serve as an early warning system for the top six common cancers in whites, breast, colon, lung, ovarian, pancreatic, and prostate, GenoMed has taken the first step towards curing cancer.
The company wants to pass these savings on to the consumer in the form of markedly lower premiums. Currently, health insurance costs $6,000 a year, but life expectancy from cardiovascular disease and cancer is still poor. GenoMed thinks it can provide better patient outcomes for up to 40% less. The company is currently looking for two other partners to provide low cost health insurance: a mail-order pharmacy to supply drugs inexpensively, and an insurance carrier for catastrophic hospitalization.
Said Dr. David Moskowitz, GenoMed's CEO and Chief Medical Officer, "If hospitalization can be avoided for most patients by judicious use of outpatient medications and tests, then insurance rates can be lowered considerably. Hospitalization will become the exception, not the norm, and catastrophic hospitalization insurance rates should apply. This is the whole promise of medical genomics and preventive molecular medicine."
GenoMed hopes to offer an insurance product inexpensive enough to attract America's 45 million uninsured patients. Given the rising cost of healthcare, other payors should soon follow as customers, including employers, state Medicaid programs, Medicare, overseas National Health Services, etc.
Source:
GenoMed 