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Health Insurance Brokers Prepare Clients For Obamacare Sticker Shock
Forbes ^ | 01/23/2013 | By Dr. Scott Gottlieb, M.D.

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 she’s 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 they’ll billet the full brunt of Obamacare’s new regulations and mandates.

California is hardly alone. Around the country, insurers are fixing to raise rates by double digits. They’re privately briefing politicians in Washington on what’s in store. Those briefings are leaving a lot of folks up and down Pennsylvania Avenue jumpy.

What’s gives? President Obama, after all, said he’d 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. They’re mere wallflowers. Even in the bluest of states.

Their silence is the best evidence of who is culpable for the increases. It’s the policymakers. It’s Obamacare. The President is accepting the premium hikes as an allowable consequence of his healthcare policies.

There’s 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 law’s mandatory community rating. One approach they’re 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 ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: healthcare; insurance; obamacare

1 posted on 01/23/2013 3:21:28 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Bttt.


2 posted on 01/23/2013 3:24:18 PM PST by Inyo-Mono (My greatest fear is that when I'm gone my wife will sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them)
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To: SeekAndFind

LEARN FROM ROMNEYCARE.

After Massachusetts adopted its own skinny version of Obamacare. To meet the law’s costs, insurers HIKED premiums. Massachusetts’s 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.


3 posted on 01/23/2013 3:25:26 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

“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.)


4 posted on 01/23/2013 3:26:06 PM PST by 21twelve ("We've got the guns, and we got the numbers" adapted and revised from Jim M.)
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To: SeekAndFind

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.


5 posted on 01/23/2013 3:30:24 PM PST by Hugin ("Most times a man'll tell you his bad intentions, if you listen and let yourself hear."---Open Range)
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To: SeekAndFind
Whole Foods CEO had it right.

Obamacare is pure fascism.

6 posted on 01/23/2013 3:44:49 PM PST by what's up
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To: SeekAndFind
There’s buzz in Washington that to ease the price hikes, the Obama team may slow down some of the most expensive regulations.

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.

7 posted on 01/23/2013 3:45:56 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: SeekAndFind
There’s buzz in Washington that to ease the price hikes, the Obama team may slow down some of the most expensive regulations.

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.

8 posted on 01/23/2013 3:46:19 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: SeekAndFind
Well, I expect steep increases, but a 300% increase all at once simply won't work even in Obamaland. It is akin to repealing the law of gravity, companies and individuals cannot pay such an increase. Whatever it is, something else will happen.
9 posted on 01/23/2013 3:48:18 PM PST by Truth29
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To: Truth29

My union healthcare plan enjoys one of Barry’s famous waivers and they still just jacked up our premium 300 percent.


10 posted on 01/23/2013 3:54:57 PM PST by Argus
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To: SeekAndFind

Where’s my free healthcare at?


11 posted on 01/23/2013 3:59:21 PM PST by SkyPilot
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To: Hugin
I had a pretty good deal but now everybody and his brother is loading folks into my plan ~ because they kissed obama's petutti and they figure those rates won't go up.

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.

12 posted on 01/23/2013 4:00:12 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: SeekAndFind
This is the next iteration of healthcare reform. Call it Obamacare 2.0. Doctors will become the next bogyman in Washington

Should your congressman make more than your doctor?


13 posted on 01/23/2013 4:03:03 PM PST by VeniVidiVici (Bathhouse Barry wants YOU to bend over for another four years)
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To: Argus

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.


14 posted on 01/23/2013 4:14:24 PM PST by Truth29
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To: SeekAndFind

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.


15 posted on 01/23/2013 4:17:37 PM PST by Rapscallion (How's that tyranny working out for you now, hmmm?)
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To: Vince Ferrer

I agree...full speed ahead. Let the masses FEEL the consequences of a Facist Dictator’s health plan. Tough love is definitely in order.


16 posted on 01/23/2013 4:50:01 PM PST by johnsmom (I must be dreaming 'cause this can't be real)
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To: johnsmom
The masses that voted for him like the Obamaphone lady are going to get subsidies so they won't feel anything. They will subsidize families making up to 90K if you make more than that you will get no such help and you will pay for the others. I hate O I can't even say his name he pisses me off to no end.
17 posted on 01/23/2013 5:15:00 PM PST by funfan
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To: Vince Ferrer

The Democrat Congress left plenty of blank pages for HHS to fill in.


18 posted on 01/24/2013 3:11:42 AM PST by Son House (Romney Plan: Cap Spending At 20 Percent Of GDP.)
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