Posted on 11/16/2013 4:17:28 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Rhode Island has rejected President Obama’s proposal to allow people to keep health insurance plans that were canceled because of the Affordable Care Act.
Kathleen C. Hittner, the state’s health insurance commissioner, and Christine C. Ferguson, director of the state’s health benefits exchange, ruled Friday that Rhode Island would stay the course and opt out of Mr. Obama’s “fix” for those upset that their policies had been discontinued.
The president announced on Thursday that people should be allowed to renew those policies for a year. But his decision does not require insurers to do so, and state insurance commissioners were free to bar any such extensions.
Insurance commissioners in Washington and Vermont have also turned down the president’s plan. In New York, health insurers announced that they were not going along with it. Groups representing health insurers and insurance commissioners said Thursday that the president’s plan would raise premiums and destabilize the market.
In a joint statement, Hittner and Ferguson said, “All plans available in 2014, whether through HealthSource RI or in the private market, have been through a rigorous review process designed to ensure that they meet the standards set forth in the Affordable Care Act.
“After reviewing the president’s announcement, we have decided to continue in the direction we are going, and therefore will not be adopting the option made available to us by the president. We will continue to closely monitor any and all changes at the federal level that have the potential to impact Rhode Islanders.”
In Rhode Island, only Blue Cross & Blue Shield’s Direct Pay plans, with 14,000 members, have been available for people buying insurance on their own. In September, Blue Cross notified its Direct Pay subscribers that their plans were being discontinued and suggested a substitute available for 2014.
Some people will have to pay more for similar coverage, while others are seeing their costs go down. Those most likely to face increases are younger men, large families and people in plans that required them to pass a medical exam in order to enroll. (Such “underwriting” to keep out sick people is now illegal.)
The Affordable Care Act sought to eliminate problems and inequities that had longed plagued the individual market. Especially in less-regulated markets, people often bought “bare bones” plans that turned out not to cover their costs when they got sick, or saw their plans canceled as soon as they got sick.
The act aimed to make individual coverage more like that of large employers. In these group plans, everybody pays into a large pool of young and old, sick and well, and everyone gets comprehensive coverage that includes services some individuals won’t need (such as maternity care or prostate surgery).
Better coverage costs more, however, and many people who liked their bare-bones plans or who benefited from plans that excluded the sick complained about higher premiums and other changes — especially since the president had repeatedly promised that people who like their plans could keep them.
In Rhode Island, the changes from 2013 to 2014 were generally less dramatic than in some other states because the individual insurance market was already highly regulated, barring bare-bones coverage and preexisting-condition exclusions.
Obummer, the Used Car Salesman
Gee, you mean the idiots who forced a vote on a massive piece of legislation without allowing our reps to read it, were not the extremists ? This must be bizzaro world. Up is down. Right is Left. Extremists are normal. And the state did not kill millions of people last century. That was Hitler’s, Stalin’s, Mussolini’s and Emperor Hirohito’s fault. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
I tried to find those quotes and I can’t. Maybe I didn’t search correctly.
If they aren’t actual quotes, you might want to remove the quotation marks since people are going to be quoting them and the lefties will make us look very stupid if obama never used those words.
I’ll ping RedMDer.
I don’t know the source of the graphic.
Better coverage is in the eye of the beholder. This is socialized medicine, and those who take care of themselves or simply don’t need or want mental health care, sex changes, maternity coverage, etc., are penalized. Not only that, but you’ll also get to pay more if you work harder and/or increase your skills in order to make a higher salary.
That’s the socialist way, and it always results in nearly everyone having less. It may take time for productive people to go Galt, but that’s exactly where we’re heading.
What a shame that I wasted years of my life to fight the Cold War only to see America adopt the same pernicious ideology. It seriously pisses me off to see Americans fall for this crap, but I guess they just have to experience it for themselves before the learn (if then).
Problems and inequities created by government:
- Mandating what insurance policies can or cannot cover
- Forcing ERs to accept EVERYONE, which means people are using the ER as their primary care instead of going through a primary care physician first
- Not expanding the use of HRAs or FSAs, which would drastically reduce costs by paying for appointments, check-ups, and routine care with a debit card
- Prohibiting sale of policies across state lines
- Distorting the market with money spent on Medicare and Medicaid
Now more people have lost coverage. Thanks ACA, yeah I'll purchase a policy off your crappy website that will cover my future sex change operation to look like Britney Spears.
Well there will be some state Democrats that will attract the ire of the people, this is a good thing.
Racists!!
Sen. Landrieu will not be pleased that so many state commissioners are saying no. Her bill made it mandatory for the policies to be continued. Upton’s only made it allowable.
Neither one is the law, though, whereas ACA is.
IOW - they meet the standards that required so many plans to be discontinued, and so many people to be left in the lurch. That said, the "fix" is illegal and requires insurers to break "The Law of the Land".
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