Posted on 11/14/2013 2:36:20 PM PST by jimbo123
Health insurance plans are not pulling any punches when it comes to their frustration with today's White House announcement. This is a statement that Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, just put out:
“Making sure consumers have secure, affordable coverage is health plans' top priority. The only reason consumers are getting notices about their current coverage changing is because the ACA requires all policies to cover a broad range of benefits that go beyond what many people choose to purchase today.
“Changing the rules after health plans have already met the requirements of the law could destabilize the market and result in higher premiums for consumers. Premiums have already been set for next year based on an assumption of when consumers will be transitioning to the new marketplace. If now fewer younger and healthier people choose to purchase coverage in the exchange, premiums will increase and there will be fewer choices for consumers. Additional steps must be taken to stabilize the marketplace and mitigate the adverse impact on consumers.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“No, read that as “financial bailout” footed by the taxpayers — again.”
Will never happen, especially since Dems have demonized insurance companies. Any attempt to bail them out after so much demonization will only make Dems look worse.
And there won’t be enough votes in the House for yet another bail-out.
Repeal with market-oriented solutions is the only way to fix this for everyone.
After all, the insurance companies crawled in bed with the a-hole so they deserve everything they are getting and more!
Lay down with a pig and you might get dirty.
There is nothing in the article about a bail out…you fell for a bullshit (addendum) to the headline.
That’s true, but if they go away, what are you left with?
Something to think about...
Is that what you based your “bailout” headline on?
Very weak.
Bingo.
This thing is like a hurricane. It's going to hit. Even if it were repealed tomorrow, it'd take months for the insurance companies to reissue the old policies and start to undo the damage.
The decision really isn't in their hands. It's in the hands of the state insurance commissioners. WA and OR (blue states) have already said thanks, but no thanks. I expect we'll hear the rest follow suit.
It is the duty of the House to impeach Obama for his dozens of unconstitutional actions—which include today’s illegal, unilateral LEGISLATING by the Executive.
The House has this duty without regard to the likelihood (zero) of conviction in the Senate.
A new insurance business who happen to be HONEST...as in not involved in discussions with the a-hole to screw their customers.
Notable in new WH fact sheet: "HHS will consider the impact of this transitional policy in assessing whether to extend it beyond 2014."
The reality of it is Zer0 cannot change the law by executive order. Any change of law needs to be enacted by Congress or Senate and go to the other house. Period!
It is not a quick process and while the American people are waiting, someone gets sick and dies because they are not covered.
Here is how the process works:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/legprocess.htm
Final comment: Obamacare is the spawn of Teddy Kennedy. It will send the nation off the bridge to Chappaquiddick Island. Your fellow Americans will be like Mary Jo Kopechne, alone in that flooded car; left to drown. This nation will die.
Is the Administration Offering Insurers an Obamacare Bailout? (New guidance for Risk Corridor!)
The Foundry ^ | 11/14/13 | Chris Jacobs
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3091410/posts
However, the real story is buried in the final paragraph of the three-page memo, where CMS implies it is exploring options to provide additional payments to insurers to offset their losses from this Obamacare debacle:
Though this transitional policy was not anticipated by health insurance issuers when setting rates for 2014, the risk corridor program should help ameliorate unanticipated changes in premium revenue. We intend to explore ways to modify the risk corridor program final rules to provide additional assistance.
That statement went out during the president's news conference, where Obama's comments likely didn't do much to endear insurers to these changes. He essentially described this policy decision as one allowing the White House to shift the blame for cancellations from the White House to the health plans.
"What we want to do is to be able to say to these folks, you know what, the Affordable Care Act is not going to be the reason why insurers have to cancel your plan," he said. "Now, what folks may find is the insurance companies may still come back and say, we want to charge you 20 percent more than we did last year, or we're not going to cover prescription drugs now."
Health insurance plans are angry because this could screw up all their plans for the new health insurance markets. They have already set the prices they plan to charge in the 2014 insurance exchanges, and those relied on people transitioning out of their current plans (which would be phased out) and into these new, more robust plans.
Now, that might not happen. And insurers are in a bit of a tricky spot. It will look pretty bad if they don't allow people to keep enrolling in their 2013 plans; as the president said, its a whole lot harder to blame the cancellations on Obamacare.
But if they do allow that to go forward, it could screw up the risk pool in the new insurance marketplaces by letting the younger and healthy people (who would likely stick with their skimpier plans) stay out of the exchange. They'd essentially be siphoning off the exact same customers they were hoping to woo into the exchanges. In the very worse case scenario — and probably not the most likely, since the health law has mechanisms to prevent this — the exchange could end up as something akin to a really big high-risk pool.
For insurers, at this point, they're not really left with any great option.
Yes, Obamacare is the looting of America. In this case, the middle class will be mugged. When that process is finished, America will be done.
That’s beside the point…there is NOTHING in THIS statement or article that speaks to a bail out.
Will the admin offer one to make them shut up? Maybe. Will they be bought off again? Not so sure. But again, you are reading something into this story that does not exist.
Read this again! It’s a bailout!
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/11/14/administration-offering-insurers-obamacare-bailout/
That’s a fantasy…..if the industry goes down, in this scenario, it will be because the O admin has actually managed to shift blame to them…..
I bet the insurance companies hope the states do follow WA's lead and not allow reissuing the old policies.
That way the companies wouldn't have to make the choice of either reissuing the old policies (administrative nightmare) or not (enraging policyholders).
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