Posted on 06/25/2015 2:07:54 PM PDT by NoLibZone
Will the latest ruling give the Insurance Companies any ability or impetus to raise premiums?
Wait until you’re on single-payer like we are.
I predict rates will go up. Just like they always have.
I predict they will go up, but not at all like they always have.
That’s the whole idea. Price everyone out of the market so they demand single payer. Make all the doctors and nurses employees of fedzilla so the idiot quack can earn the same as a skilled physician.
Here ‘ya go (link if you want it: http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-king-v-burwell-decision.html):
Does this mean that Obamacare has cleared its last major hurdle?
Not a chance.
Obamacare has only enrolled about 40% of the subsidy eligible market in two years worth of open enrollments. That level of consumer support does not make Obamacare either financially sustainable or politically sustainable. The surveys say the 40% who have enrolled like their plans. Of course they do, they are the poorest with the biggest subsidies and the lowest deductibles. The working and middle-class have most often not signed up for Obamacare because it costs too much and delivers too little.
That Obamacare is not financially sustainable is evidenced by the first wave of big 2016 rate increases by so many large market share insurers. The next wave of rate increases a year from now will also be large and will be in the middle of the 2016 election.
These rate increases will further undermine the political sustainability of the law that has been reflected in five years of polling.
Part of what will constrain premium increases it the medical-loss ratio provision. Basically 85% of premiums must be used for health care costs, only 15% can be used for administration and profit. If the insurance companies charge too much and don’t use it to pay for medical costs, it gets refunded back to the participants.
Those states that were stupid enough to spent hundreds of millions of dollars to setup their own "exchange" are going to shut them down so fast it'll make a Washington Bureaucrat's head spin.
Why would any state at this point, continue to incur the expense of running an exchange when the USSC just said the subsidies were available to all states that didn't have an exchange?
This thing may collapse under its own weight yet.
“Part of what will constrain premium increases it the medical-loss ratio provision.”
You’re kidding, right? The insurance company premiums are not what is spinning out of control, yet, those are reactionary. The increases are all across the service providers. Nothing in ocare prevent that. Just look at how hospital stocks rocketed today.
“Why would any state at this point, continue to incur the expense of running an exchange...”
I tried to make this point on facebook today when the local tv station posted this ruling. The response I got back was why would a state do that, won’t the people be better served by a state over federal exchange. I said maybe, but an good insurance broker before ocare would have been better still. lol
The working subsiding the poor and the lazy, the healthy subsidizing the sick, $19 trillion in debt this is a catastrophe in the making.....
Catie bar the door! The SCOTUS has jumped the political shark and we must all fear the outcome.
I dream about the rates doing what they did before then.
The insurance companies never lose and they have the smartest actuaries. With forced insurance and the gov subsidizing people who can't afford it, the rates will go insane.
Think about it. Insurance companies now have an incentive to let the consumer get everything he/she wants. It gives them a reason to raise rates.
If the insurance companies charge too much and don’t use it to pay for medical costs, it gets refunded back to the participants.
Do policyholders get credits on their monthly invoices following each month the insurer got > 85% greedy?
If you want to see how much insurance companies are trying to raise rates for next year go here:
https://ratereview.healthcare.gov
Click on Search ACA-Compliant Products
Select your State
Enter: 01/01/2016 and 12/31/2016
That site is an eye opener...gawd!
The state exchanges will all fold up like a cheap suitcase. Of those 13 remaining most are dysfunctional and a drain on state budgets. The US tax payer paid 4.2 billion to set these up. Money down a rat hole.
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