Posted on 11/06/2009 7:25:37 AM PST by La Lydia
Obamacare could have the unintended consequence of raising health insurance premiums and causing a decline in the number of people with insurance. Here's why: A key feature of the House and Senate health bills would prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to anyone with preexisting conditions. The new coverage would start immediately, and the premium could not reflect the individual's health condition.
This well-intentioned feature would provide a strong incentive for someone who is healthy to drop his or her health insurance, saving the substantial premium costs. After all, if serious illness hit this person or a family, he could immediately obtain coverage. As healthy individuals decline coverage, insurance companies would come to have a sicker population. The higher cost of insuring that group would force insurers to raise their premiums. (Separate accident policies might develop to deal with the risk of high-cost care after accidents when there is insufficient time to buy insurance.)
The higher premium level would cause others who are currently insured to drop coverage, pushing premiums even higher. The result would be a spiral of rising premiums and shrinking numbers of insured.
In an attempt to prevent this, the draft legislation provides penalties for individuals who choose not to buy insurance and for employers that do not offer health insurance. But the levels of these fines are generally too low to cause a rational individual to insure.... For a lower-income family, the fine is smaller, and the incentive to be uninsured is even greater...
...for those who are now privately insured through employers or by direct purchase, there would be substantial incentives to become uninsured until they become sick. The resulting rise in the cost to insurance companies as the insured population becomes sicker would raise the average premium, strengthening that incentive...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
They’ll vote for it anyway, because it’s really not about healthcare, it’s about expanding government. This is just the chosen vehicle for doing so.
If this passes, I will drop my coverage.
First of all, my catastrophic coverage will no longer be available because it would not be “approved.”
Secondly, the “approved” coverage for my family would be 2.5 times more expensive.
I can barely afford my premium now.
I may as well drop my policy and buy it when I need it.
The second part of the story is the "public option". Are those evil capitalist insurance companies trying to raise your premiums because they now have millions of very sick patients to care for? Jump on the public plan. It's cheaper because we will just raise taxes on the rich. Who are the rich? Do you have a job? You're rich.
The third part of the story is when traditional insurance companies go out of business. Hope you like your "public option".
Truth? in the WaPo?.....................oooh! there goes a pig flying past my window!..................
First of all, FOX NEWS is reporting that the House bill, if passed, will "change the entire health care system for America."
This is stupid and incorrect reporting on FOX NEW's part. The House bill is just that...a HOUSE bill. It still has to get through the Senate...and that is a long way off.
Settle down FOX...you don't need to become alarmist as are CNN/MSNBC/ABC/CNBC etc. Stick with telling the truth.
Now...to the rest of you....have you called the Washington office of your Congress person yet? If not....DO SO NOW! Let them know that you want them to vote NO on the bill (funny how they pick SUNDAY to vote - trying to hide something??). Make the call today...I did.
THAT IS THE PLAN. That is how they are going to impose socialized medicine on us. These people do not believe in capitalism. They are socialists and worse. They think they are smarter than the market. Henry Waxman has been talking about this for years. The bills before Congress are step one, the camel's nose under the tent, if you will. Once this becomes law, the destruction of traditional insurance companies becomes inevitable. Then the government is left in complete control.
Sounds like the perfect scenario for forcing everyone on to government run health care.
Imagine your house catches fire and then you call up an insurance company to get fire insurance - - and that insurance company must, by law, insure you. Yeah, that’ll work....
Gee, who saw this coming?
Hey, this is just like allowing you to drive uninsured and then buy liability insurance the day after you drunkenly ram your SUV into a bus load of nuns on the way back from closing the bar at 2:00 am right after St. Paddy’s day.
Next thing you know, we won’t have to buy property casualty insurance until the day after our house burns down, either.
Well they should have been back in the convent at 2:00 a.m., and not gallivanting around at bars.
FWIW, it's an opinion piece, not a news article.
A very important message, but which will be discounted by many on account of which section it's in.
My only complaint about Mr. Feldstein's analysis is that it doesn't seem to reflect real human behavior or decision processes. I don't think most people would actually perform the sort of green-eyeshade analysis he's doing; and as a result, the actual effects would probably be much more subtle (though probably not less serious) than what Feldstein predicts.
Personally, I am looking at how to game this system, to my benefit, and hopefully screw the federal gov’t. I am looking at placing my significant assets under the ownership of a corporation, of which I am the CEO. I will forgo my present insurance from my employer, and take a cash payment instead, and pay for my health costs from the banked money from my employer. Should something catastrophic happen, I have the option of bankruptcy, while maintaining my assets, or at least control of my assets. For example, I own a large parcel of land and will form a corporate farm, for which I will be paid a salary. I am working with an accountant to game this system, and push my healthcare costs back on the fed. Sure, I’ll pay a 900 dollar fine per year, but thats about a months premium for my current health insurance. Its high time we bankrupted the federal government, as that is the only realistic way I can see to reign in their over reach of our constitution.
They won't, but they will see the "benefits" of not paying for insurance when they don't have to. Bottom line: Drop the insurance until I need it.
Unintended consequensce... HAH! The whole purpose of this bill is to destroy the private insurance industry and force people to depend on government healthcare.
See comment No. 8.
The only coverage available will be through the government... so take the time NOW to make a few phone calls to the reps that are wobbling.
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