Posted on 05/05/2017 9:44:17 PM PDT by Helicondelta
The head of the largest insurer in the Mid-Atlantic region warned Thursday that the Affordable Care Act marketplaces were in the early stages of a death spiral, a statement that came as the company announced its request for massive, double-digit premium increases for next year.
Projecting that by year's end the company will have lost a total of $600 million since it started selling plans in the marketplaces four years ago, CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield is requesting a greater than 50 percent rate increase in Maryland, a 35 percent increase in northern Virginia and a 29 percent increase in D.C.
“What we’re seeing is greater sickness levels. The pool of beneficiaries is becoming sicker, in part because healthier people are not coming in at the same level we hoped,” said Chet Burrell, chief executive of CareFirst, which insures about 215,000 people through the marketplaces set up by the Affordable Care Act in all three states.
Burrell said he was worried that the market was in the early stages of a death spiral, in which sick people who need insurance stay in the pool but healthier people drop out, causing insurers to raise rates — driving even more healthy people out of the market.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Hopefully, Governor Hogan will tell them where tehy can stick that idea.
Well, its only 50%. /sarc
everything the gov’t touches gets more expensive and lower quality
the more gov’t involved the higher cost & lower the quality
health care is no exception
55 years of gov’t meddling and the result is the most expensive health care on earth and bottom of barrel quality (last in developed world)
“What we’re seeing is greater sickness levels. The pool of beneficiaries is becoming sicker, in part because healthier people are not coming in at the same level we hoped,” said Chet Burrell, chief executive of CareFirst
You are admitting your scheme of fleecing the taxpayer has now ended
Why wouldn’t healthy families of 4 not want to pay $30,000 a year ( $1500 a month for insurance and $12k family deductible) before their “ insurance” kicks in?
Such a bargain...
“Such a bargain...”
Yeah, all that money spent, and not one damned dime of coverage unless you’re on a death spiral with some disease. For most folks, Obamacare is about the same as building a fire and fueling it with your hard-earned money, except you don’t even get to warm your hands.
Yep - force them to drop out to keep from doing business at a loss. Ironic that ObamaCare has caused so many healthy folks to drop out so only the more expensive sick folks are sticking with it.
It’s Maryland.. they’ll ask for 50% and Maryland will give them 75....
The pool of beneficiaries is becoming sicker, in part because healthier people are not coming in at the same level we hoped,”
Because if the healthy people came in it means they paid the ridiculous deductible upfront so they could use crap care. What a scam, those who fight for crap care are invested in it
A 50% increase will get them to what people are already paying in Illinois.
Mandates make unsubsidized premiums recognizably too expensive, and those with good sense, good health and good incomes avoid them. Those with subsidized premiums, poor health and lower incomes take the bait of a program that costs them only a fraction of its true costs.
I don’t really cry for the insurance companies. They got behind Obamacare, sacrificing some Liberty for everyone for a few extra shekels promised to the insurers.
They were told by better minds what has happened would happen. They didn’t listen.
A benevolent tyrant would nationalize all of them, fire their CEOs and boards, appoint new boards and managers, with the bylaws of the corporations forbidding them ever again to help promote the likes of Obamacare. Then a new IPO for each of them would put them back on the market as truly reformed “free enterprise” companies.
Our elites are determined to maintain us at a bare sustenance level; ObamaCare was designed to eliminate any discretionary funds Americans had, and then drive them into debt slavery.
50% increase. No problem. I got a 50% increase in my salary. No wait, I got that wrong; it was a 3% increase.
The unfixable flaw is that many people are going to use anything that they can since "it's insured". A lot of them will end up sicker, because they will get a med or a treatment instead of having to take responsibility upon themselves to stay healthy and make life-style choices that will lead to healing.
Diabetes 2 is primarily caused because people don't take care of their bodies. I would hypothesize that A LOT of the opioid epidemic is caused by prescription meds. Instead of learning to cope with pain, people turn to that high they learned to live with while they were healing. Then there's the replacement body parts for seniors. I'm sure some of these surgeries are necessary. I've also seen situations where things can go horribly wrong and it probably wasn't worth the risk.
What's my point? There would have to be a lowest cost option and a reward for people who choose that. Otherwise, there are no marketplace factors to keep prices and use of medical solutions in line.
Maryland “Freeeeeeeeeeeak State PING!”
Why? Do you think it's the government's job to dictate prices to corporations? How about your pay? Maybe the government should decide that you're paid too much and taxed too little.
The government shouldn’t be involved, but it is, and if we can drive another insurer out of the market, we might be able to collapse both 0bamacare and the Republican tweak of it.
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