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 ...
You nailed it! Our politicians have turned into freeloaders using their lawmaking powers to benefit their own off-shore accounts.
Dude….learn to read your own words. YOu said the industry was ASKING for a bailout in THIS article….they are NOT.
NOW, whether or not the Admin OFFERS one to try and buy them off is ANOTHER ISSUE ALTOGETHER. If you are hot to trot to put bail out in a headline, use that Heritage link, not this one.
By the way, most of TARP has been paid back…..GM and the union slush funds never will be from Stimulus. Direct your anger at stim, not TARP….both are bad, but Stim about 1000X worse….
Or, if you like your plan, you can rent it. (for a year)
They can’t say it like that. Insurers have to say:
“We literally have no choice but to obey the law on the books. It doesn’t matter what the government SAYS it wants us to do. What will keep us out of criminal court is obeying the LAW AS IT IS ACTUALLY WRITTEN. We did everything we could to warn them this would happen. We don’t have a choice. If we don’t follow the law, we will pay the same consequences any other criminal pays.
If they change the law, by repealing the law, or by passing a law that voids parts, or all, of the existing law, then we will follow that law.
Otherwise, we are bound to do the same thing any other private citizen or company is obligated to do - follow the law on the books.”
How many months do insurance companies spend each year collecting and applying research, running actuarial algorithms and using a dozen other processes to manage the policies of a relatively stable pool of policy holders?
Now how do they put them back together not knowing how many will want back in, not having the data they would have been collecting but didn't because they had no expectation of needing it and not knowing what King Canute will decree next week, next month or next year?
If all economic and regulatory obstacles were taken care of is it even technically possible?
0bama just jumped a purple polka-dotted shark IMO.
It’s a bailout. The insurers are demanding one and Obama is promising them one.
This as if obama gave a damn.
I agree with both you.
It’s very very difficult to resurrect killed policies. Incredible financial and actuarial loss data goes into the devleopment of every single product. Then that has to be processed by each state where it will be sold and of course the Feds. They are very regulated and very complicated.
And they are based on the fact that customers will retain them for years on average. When both insurer and customer knows their marriage is over in a year, gone is any incent to be honest and protect the relationship.
Its an Obama pipe dream.
Show me where they are demanding one?
Washington State’s insurance commissioner today has already bailed obamma out by refusing to allow this.
Repeal and let them compete on the open market.
Geez, that wasn’t hard to figure out.
Good grief. Insurance companies do not make their money off their premiums. They make them off their investments. I am so disappointed in the politicians. They know this is a trick. When a policy is cancelled; it is cancelled. Insurance companies on the other hand do not want to insure older people, disabled or sick people. Also, the baby boomers are the largest group of people out there. What better way to get rid of people than to have a law like ACA; exempting themselves and their friends, of course; etc. ACA is not about health insurance; but it is a good way for both the insurance companies and the government to get rid of the old, the disabled and the sick.
When the bailout happens, and it will, that will essentially usher in ‘single payer’.
The USG will subsidize the plans, allowing insurers to restore policies and rates. The USG will print what they have to in order to make it work. The USG will then force the young to buy plans through their taxes and call it ‘cost recovery, not a tax’.
We’ll see.
He thinks he can just make a speech and it will all go away.
That is what I suspected. I would expect that the day after they finish working on a plan/product for the coming year they begin working on that same plan/product for the year after that in an ongoing process that brings in new data and configures it to the desired outcome. The outcome being a consistent product with minimal changes to coverage, cost and profit.
Tough noogies for the insurance companies, they got into bed with the government, now they can reap the whirlwind.
Good point. He’s always had other people to do the work for him. But now things are so FUBARed, nobody can fix it. Even repeal tomorrow would leave months of work ahead to pick up the pieces.
Those money grubbing Democrats who punched the Obamacare ticket are now finding themselves riding down the tracks with Americans ready to derail their gravy train. If I had my way I would elect a President who vowed to prosecute every Democrat to the fullest extent of the law for fraud and treason.
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