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White House Warns Insurers Against Rate Hikes [Jawohl, Mein Fuhrer!]
The Wall Street Journal ^ | September 9, 2010 | Janet Adamy

Posted on 09/09/2010 4:27:18 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

The Obama administration on Thursday told health insurers that it will track those who enact "unjustified" rate increases linked to the health overhaul and may block those companies from a new marketplace for insurance coverage.

Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, issued the warning in a letter to Karen Ignagni, the insurance industry's top lobbyist.

Ms. Sebelius said some insurers were notifying enrollees that their insurance premiums will increase next year as a result of the law's new benefits.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that some carriers are asking for total premium hikes topping 20% starting this month, and the carriers are attributing one to nine percentage points of the increases to new benefit mandates in the law.

"There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases," Ms. Sebelius wrote. "We will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections."

Beginning Sept. 23 or later, many new plans for individuals and small employers must begin letting children stay on their parents' insurance policies until age 26. These plans also face a requirement to eliminate co-payments for preventive care, give coverage to children regardless of pre-existing medical conditions and eliminate lifetime coverage caps.

Ms. Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, said: "It's a basic law of economics that additional benefits incur additional costs, and the impact on premiums depends on the type and amount of coverage policyholders had before." She attributed rising premiums to the higher price of medical services and the impact of younger and healthier people dropping their insurance during the weak economy, as well as the additional benefits required under the new law.(continued)

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bhofascism; liberalfascism; obama; obamacare
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To: DB

Price controls are pure politics. Even THEY know they don’t work. But it motivates and pleases the masses like the woman who thought that Obama was going to pay for him gas.


21 posted on 09/09/2010 4:56:22 PM PDT by whitedog57
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
"We will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections."

What kind of looting mentality does it take to come up with a statement like that? "Provide"? At whose expense? And how will companies profit by being forced - yes - forced - to provide services at less than their actual cost?

This is Communism. And thank God, people are waking up to it. Ayn Rand was right:

"One cannot hope to maintain one’s life by accepting bribes to condone one’s destruction. Do not straggle for profit, success or security at the price of a lien on your right to exist. Such a lien is not to be paid off; the more you pay them, the more they will demand; the greater the values you seek or achieve, the more vulnerably helpless you become. "

22 posted on 09/09/2010 4:56:44 PM PDT by andy58-in-nh (America does not need to be organized: it needs to be liberated.)
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To: Cementjungle

Our family plan insurance annual premium was already raised $2,000 this summer because of the new Obamacare mandates.


23 posted on 09/09/2010 5:02:01 PM PDT by kaehurowing
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To: GeronL
Zero is demanding greater coverage from insurance companies yet is not going to allow them to raise rates to compensate said coverage? Does this idiot not know what price ceilings do to an industry?

I swear we've elected Tyrone from the hood to the presidency.

24 posted on 09/09/2010 5:03:50 PM PDT by LouAvul
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To: dalebert

I just got a notice of a new price hike. I already had one as soon as the healthcare bill passed. Thanks Obama!!!


25 posted on 09/09/2010 5:12:17 PM PDT by sheana
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To: hinckley buzzard

Welcome to the Obamanation;

…a Mau Mau Democracy in action.


26 posted on 09/09/2010 5:18:41 PM PDT by ntmxx (I am not so sure about this misdirection!)
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To: screaminsunshine

“Remember..in Communism everything is cheap..but there isn’t any.”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I heard a joke back in the sixties that was already old and moldy.

A man goes into the butcher shop and asks, “How much are your lamb chops?” “Fifty cents a pound”, comes the reply. “Fifty cents, down the street they got ‘em for forty cents!”
“Well, buy some down the street.” “I can’t, they are sold out, they don’t have any.” “Oy vay, when I don’t have any they are only a quarter.”


27 posted on 09/09/2010 5:19:50 PM PDT by RipSawyer (Trying to reason with a leftist is like trying to catch sunshine in a fish net at midnight.)
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To: LostInBayport

This is all Congresses fault!

The political class and “Friends of Government” intend to use this as “their cash cow” to perpetual prosperity.


28 posted on 09/09/2010 5:22:27 PM PDT by ntmxx (I am not so sure about this misdirection!)
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To: griswold3

They are not corporatist, they are idiots.


29 posted on 09/09/2010 5:22:43 PM PDT by RipSawyer (Trying to reason with a leftist is like trying to catch sunshine in a fish net at midnight.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Better watch out.

With the new “Financial Reform Law”, it’s no telling what Obama could do to them.


30 posted on 09/09/2010 5:24:57 PM PDT by Tzimisce (No thanks. We have enough government already. - The Tick)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Nonsense, Obama repealed all natural law, including the economic silliness that coupled increased costs to increased premiums.


31 posted on 09/09/2010 5:25:51 PM PDT by GregoryFul
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To: GoCards

Perhaps Obama will be the first ex-president we behead!


32 posted on 09/09/2010 5:26:50 PM PDT by GregoryFul
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

When is one of these limp......wristed.........Wussies gonna grow a set and say, in public, “F U, you Marxist, Kenyan steaming pantload. This is America and you are not king”?


33 posted on 09/09/2010 5:29:30 PM PDT by Feckless (I was trained by the US Government to Kill Commies. Now ain't that ironic?)
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To: Gator113
I am so damn sick of this sh-t.

The most dangerous part is yet to come. Little bammy has two more years.

But these two years are going to be no majority in Congress.

No ability to strong-arm legislation through.

With ANY luck no reid/no pelosi.

No fawning bunch of commie butt smoochers to constantly tell him he is right, he's so bright, oh, oh, he is the one the pinheads have been praying to Lenin for, etc, etc.

I believe the MSM will even go sour on him as they can save the commie-dems but they will not be able to make more excuses for bammy’s total failure.

He will be alone but with Soros still on his back jerking the strings.

If you think we have seen little bammy in stress mode up until now, what is coming will be an entirely new level.

And there will be no predicting what he will do, other than he has lied about EVERY aspect of his life, education, politics, religion, moral compass, etc, etc.

NOT GOOD.

.

34 posted on 09/09/2010 5:34:13 PM PDT by TLI ( ITINERIS IMPENDEO VALHALLA)
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To: Cementjungle
My Blue Cross Blue Shield premium went up 44% this year, despite the fact that I didn't even use it last year!

(sigh)

35 posted on 09/09/2010 5:35:59 PM PDT by RikaStrom (Pray for Obama - Psalm 109:8 "Let his days be few; and let another take his place of leadership.")
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To: GeronL

I cannot wait for Kathy to be among the ranks of the unemployed...she is a nitwit. You do NOT offer more benefits for the same price. Go to any market and demand that they give you the meat along with the potatoes for the exact same price as the potatoes. Say it is your “right” to have meat with your potatoes. Watch as they carry you off in a straight jacket!!!


36 posted on 09/09/2010 5:36:09 PM PDT by Semperfiwife (This is the "Ba-roke" era.)
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To: GeronL

I cannot wait for Kathy to be among the ranks of the unemployed...she is a nitwit. You do NOT offer more benefits for the same price. Go to any market and demand that they give you the meat along with the potatoes for the exact same price as the potatoes. Say it is your “right” to have meat with your potatoes. Watch as they carry you off in a straight jacket!!!


37 posted on 09/09/2010 5:36:09 PM PDT by Semperfiwife (This is the "Ba-roke" era.)
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To: TLI

The near future will certainly be interesting.


38 posted on 09/09/2010 5:40:48 PM PDT by Gator113 (Beauty will devour the Beast in 2012. Kill "Obamamosque"@ Ground Zero)
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To: Semperfiwife

forcing them out of business is the whole goal


39 posted on 09/09/2010 5:41:00 PM PDT by GeronL (http://libertyfic.proboards.com <--- My Fiction/ Science Fiction Board)
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To: GeronL
and exactly how will they calculate what is “justified”?

That will depend on how much cash that they determine can be looted from the insurance company reserves.

40 posted on 09/09/2010 5:41:23 PM PDT by Hoodat (.For the weapons of our warfare are mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.)
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