Posted on 01/23/2013 3:21:26 PM PST by SeekAndFind
A California insurance broker, who sells health plans to individuals and small businesses, told me that shes prepping her clients for a sticker shock. Her local carriers are hinting to her that premiums may triple this fall, when the plans unveil how theyll billet the full brunt of Obamacares new regulations and mandates.
California is hardly alone. Around the country, insurers are fixing to raise rates by double digits. Theyre privately briefing politicians in Washington on whats in store. Those briefings are leaving a lot of folks up and down Pennsylvania Avenue jumpy.
Whats gives? President Obama, after all, said hed prevent these sorts of prices. His new health law gave state regulators the power to block premium increases. It even created a federal agency to oversee insurance rates. But these bureaucrats are spectators to the price hikes. Theyre mere wallflowers. Even in the bluest of states.
Their silence is the best evidence of who is culpable for the increases. Its the policymakers. Its Obamacare. The President is accepting the premium hikes as an allowable consequence of his healthcare policies.
Theres buzz in Washington that to ease the price hikes, the Obama team may slow down some of the most expensive regulations. This might include the laws mandatory community rating. One approach theyre said to be considering is allowing some of the historically based underwriting to stay in place for a time.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Bttt.
LEARN FROM ROMNEYCARE.
After Massachusetts adopted its own skinny version of Obamacare. To meet the laws costs, insurers HIKED premiums. Massachusettss regulators blocked the increases.
RESULT: All the plans reported losses the very next quarter.
So, what did MA do?
Massachusetts regulators went after the underlying source of spending peoples use of medical services.
First and foremost, that meant taking on the providers.
Massachusetts moved to regulate the prices that doctors and hospitals could charge and the kind of services that they could offer.
Rates are rising nationally because, like Massachusetts, Obamacare guarantees more free medical services while doing nothing to make the market for these things more efficient, or competitive. Like Massachusetts, some form of price controls is the next political chapter.
And guess what price control eventually leads to?
If you say — SHORTAGES — go to the head of the class.
That’s what we should expect NATIONALLY when Obamacare fully kicks in.
“Around the country, insurers are fixing to raise rates by double digits.”
Greedy SOB insurance companies. Same goes for those Doctors driving around in their fancy Mercedes. The only way to bring down the costs is to have the Government control the ENTIRE Health Care Industry.
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(That’s the PLAN baby.)
IOW, everythung is going according to plan. Next step, demonize the insurance companies for using “loopholes” to jack up rates, and say they tried to fix the private system, but now they have no choice but government healthcare for everyone.
Obamacare is pure fascism.
Congress should prevent the president from unilaterally changing anything in the law, and don't allow changes to the law. Only repeal. Let's ram this iceberg full speed ahead.
Congress should prevent the president from unilaterally changing anything in the law, and don't allow changes to the law. Only repeal. Let's ram this iceberg full speed ahead.
My union healthcare plan enjoys one of Barry’s famous waivers and they still just jacked up our premium 300 percent.
Where’s my free healthcare at?
That makes it harder for me to get an appointment when I want it ~ which makes my insurance policy worth less.
Interestingly there's a special law out there passed in 1972 that requires that my 'benefits' never be reduced below what they were in that year. It affects a few thousand people ~ but it's the law. I'm thinking of demanding that OPM take it to court and force my health care provider to dump all those free riders off their policies.
Should your congressman make more than your doctor?
I presume that your premium was not too large. What I was visualizing was a company or individual paying $500 or $1000 per month per insured being told that their premium would triple. Many companies and individuals simply can’t pay that amount of increase.
Don’t you know yet that Obama has to be impeached and removed from office....or just stand there and watch America go down the tube.
I agree...full speed ahead. Let the masses FEEL the consequences of a Facist Dictator’s health plan. Tough love is definitely in order.
The Democrat Congress left plenty of blank pages for HHS to fill in.
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