Posted on 01/06/2013 1:33:22 AM PST by Brad from Tennessee
Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.
Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.
In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Wow - it's like you're watching my purchases over my shoulder. There are others, but you've pretty well captured it.
Meanwhile, the 47% will be entirely unaffected by any rate increases because they will never see the bill.
This was inevitable. Republicans should be working very hard right now to have ready a workable plan to replace this mess, as will become necessary when costs continue to explode.
The left just wanted to ‘win’ this issue, irrespective of what the details were. It’s always a ‘stick it to you’ contest with them, and there is always a villain they’re targeting. They knew that the only way to get a bill through was to make back room deals first, and there are plenty of these in this monstrosity of a bill.
People don’t even know what insurance is anymore. They think they are buying a maintenance plan where everything little thing is supposed to be payed by somebody else. Somebody else = evil corporations. A large majority of Americans are TV addicted, celebrity worshipping fools and a collapse and Civil War is well deserved.
Obama does not want to get rid of health insurance. He wants a different form of it. Before health insurance our healthcare system was far better.
Another excellent idea.
In all fairness the cost of premiums is so high now that people do feel like they should get something for the ridiculous rates charged.
Now I agree insurance should only be for unforeseen events but the criminal govt has already destroyed the health system.
My small business got hit with a 42% increase. My solution? Reduced my staff by one. That more than covered the increase in premiums. I’m happy it turned out that the staff person most expendable happened to be the lone Obama voter.
———In California-——
California does not count and should not even be mentioned. California is one of a few foreign nations that happen to be included in the United States.
And by law you have to get it, so if you're in line and can't afford it we'll "tax" you until we take everything you have left.
True, most people will try to get what they can afford.
I really don’t understand how insurance companies would think this is wise. Maybe my own thinking is too simplistic and am speaking out of ignorance (forgive in advance then) =
If I can’t afford your insurance anymore- I’d have to go with a cheaper option which I suppose could be Obamacare right?
How will insurance companies win if they lose a bunch of customers to Obamacare? I’m confused. Common sense says they’d compete with better prices and service for your business.
Another thing that is happening is that many companies and their employees do not make enough to pay higher rates for their current health plans because of all the Obama Deathcare mandates that insurers are required to cover, so, the employers change plans to far higher deductables and copay rates.
Our doctor copays used to be 35 dollars, now we pay 100 dollars and they pay 35 dollars.
Sad part is that we pay more for the insurance now out of the paycheck.
What a friggin’ nightmare. I didn’t get to keep my plan or my doctor. She quit.
“Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own. “
Hey that’s excellent. Obama needs this constituency destroyed anyway. He needs as many people as possible dependent on government.
Exactly.
Insurance is there with the idea that it is not supposed to be used unless absolutely necessary. People pay a little each month for certain services, that when used, cost far more then what you payed in, but the amount payed in by millions of others covers the cost. You were still expected to pay for something.
But now a nation full of people that lived unhealthy lives, and saved nothing, are sucking the pot dry and think insurance is a “take care of me 24/7 for the little I actually paid in” subscription service.
Yes, too, too true. Insurance is for catastrophic incidents that are infrequent occurrences. Not for everyone’s condoms and aspirin.
The people are the govt., or at least were at one point.... So when it collapses - given it is a consequence of decades of voter stupidity (not just the past 4 years) - know that all the grannies crying over their lost Social Security checks are the ones who also caused it. For all the bitching about the Democrats I see on this board people need to find a mirror so they can point the finger of blame properly. It is the consequence of decades of affluence, Affirmative Action dumbing down, and TV fostered ignorance.
re: “How will insurance companies win if they lose a bunch of customers to Obamacare? I’m confused. Common sense says they’d compete with better prices and service for your business.”
I make no claim to be an insurance expert, but I believe the answer to your question is that private health insurance companies, in order to not only remain solvent and profitable, must charge their customers the REAL cost of what has been mandated to them by the government.
Obamacare, on the other hand, simply tells the doctors/hospitals/pharmaceuticals, etc. WHAT the government is willing to pay and WHAT they MUST accept as payment.
In other words, the government can undercut what private companies charge every time because the government is not interested in competition - just control. The more people who leave the private insurance companies, the more who will come under Obamacare - the more the control. See how this works? It is diabolical - or in laymen’s terms: EVIL.
Surprise, surprise! You actually have to pay for things that are mandatory increases in benefits.
Insurance companies simply adjust rates to pay for the increased benefits. They aren’t evil, just adjusting their income to cover their expenses.
Insurance companies will insure a burning barn worth $100,000 if they can charge a premium of $100,000 + admin costs of 10-35%.
With govt-enforced mandates on service and the move toward govt-enforced controls on premium costs, how can there be competition? There can only be competition in free markets.
The health insurance industry has not been a truly free market for a long time (govt enforced coverage mandates within states and no ability to cross state lines to purchase coverage from a company whose premiums are lower because their state has fewer mandates, for example).
As others have stated, obamacare is structured to eliminate the private insurance industry. Articles like the nyt are intended to feed public outrage about greedy insurance companies raising their rates so that there will be political pressure to institute price controls on premiums.
We are on the fast track to a National HELLth Service
For me in 2013, Medicare is up 6.01%, Medicare supplement is up a whopping 16.09% and Medicare D is up an even more whopping 22.52%.
I’d be interested in the experiences of other FReepers if you’d care to share.
Some people are too stupid to understand the more the government at their insistance demands an insurance company provide in services, the higher their premiums have to be to cover these services. There is no free lunch but of course in our idolcentric, TV mesmorized populace, that is never considered. So, we now have a law which guarantees a right one does not have, medical care, while at the same time the group of revolution bound targets debates how to limit or ban a constitutional given right to firearms. The whole system has been turned on its head and must be righted before the nation totally collapses.
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