My brother works for Blue Cross/Blue Shield
1.)HSA's are not being eliminated..only the very high deductible ones such as $10,12 and 15K deductibles. BC/BS is actually going to pushing HSA plans greater in the years to come. Also the people with the older high deductible plans are being grandfathered.
2.) The Medical Loss Ratio is actually a great thing for individuals and consumers. Has NOTHING to do with HSA's.
What the MLR say's is the insurance co's must spend at least 85% of every premium dollar on claims. Up to recent they could spend 25 cents on every premium dollar on claims and spend the rest of salaries and staff and lavious trips.
As a matter of fact, BC/BS is sending back in the next several weeks hundreds of millions of dollars in rebate checks to their policy holders because they spent less than 85 cents on claims for 2011.
.There are some thing that are good in obamacare such as the MLR and the Republicans need to push those good aspects in a totally new bill.
Work-arounds are already coming into place on the Medical Loss Ratio. Part of the “must spend so much on premiums and patients” can also be spent on “quality initiatives and process improvement”. So now Six Sigma Black Belts are hired as consultants to train managers, doctors, administrators and nurses as Six Sigma yellow belts and Green Belts. Then status meetings and process reviews and paperworks and tours become part of “monitoring the process” and looking for potential improvements, billable toward MLR instead of overhead.
Why do you think government setting a maximum [gross] profit margin is a great thing?
In the long run, the 85% MLR requirement is not a good thing for consumers. This requirement will make private insurance companies more unstable as the HHS piles on coverage mandates that narrow profit margins for insurance companies. If an insurance company (a smaller one for example) has a bad year, they cannot count on reserves from the previous year and out of business they will go. Result, fewer insurance companies, fewer start ups and less competition.
The idea of the 0-care law is to make the sale of private insurance untenable, thus making single payor inevitable. Aren’t monopolies just great.