Posted on 02/08/2010 4:43:38 PM PST by UAConservative
President Obama's secretary of health and human services fired off a sharply worded letter to a California insurer Monday, demanding to know why it is raising rates for individual policyholders by as much as 39 percent.
The unusual salvo offers a reminder that, even as health-care legislation lies in limbo in Washington, the battle over surging health care costs continues in other venues.
Anthem Blue Cross of California sent out notices earlier this month to many of its roughly 800,000 holders of individual policies, informing them that the costs of their plans would sharply increase to cover rising health-care costs. The increases do not affect employer-provided plans in the state.
The letters set off a furor among many Anthem policyholders, prompting California insurance commissioner Steve Poizner, who is running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, to say that his department was investigating the increases.
On Monday, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius joined the fray, writing Anthem President Leslie Margolin to impress on Anthem its "responsibility to provide a detailed justification for these rate increases to the public." In particular, she said, Anthem should disclose to policyholders what share of their premiums is going toward profits, administrative overhead and advertising, as opposed to covering medical claims. In its initial defense of the increases, Anthem has said only that its so-called "loss ratio" (the proportion of premiums spent on care) is above the state's required minimum of 70 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It is nannyhood in orange blazing letters ten feet high.
Where is it written that a parent has the right to will a house to a child?
You are assuming a position I have not taken. If someone wants my advise on the issue, I show them their options. Some make the issue as a moral one “pay your debts.” Others make an insurance argument. I paid my taxes for the service and now I need the service. Why do I have to pay twice?
I would appreciate an argument as to why the proposed plan, which virtually eliminates government from most medical decisions is 'nannyish'.
Okay, for starters how do we choose the members of the death, oops make that bum panel?
Since when has there ever been a direct relation between a tax on taxpayers and the services claimed to be supported by that tax?
Does our gasoline tax only go to keeping up the road system? Do our Social Security and Medicare taxes only go to SS and Medicare payments?
The whole system is a fustercluck. I'm proposing to simplify it considerably. Why is that not a good, conservative idea?
And sorry for assuming something in what you wrote that you didn't write.
In Cal, gas tax is earmarked for transportation, but not used for it. Social security goes into the general fund for all I know. Doesn't impact what people pay in taxes and what they expect from the program.
The only expenses that would not be covered would be silly things like cosmetic surgery, aroma therapy, etc.
I truly believe that this proposed plan will save so much money that there will be no need to try and economize by denying end-of-life treatment. If this happens it will be by vote of Congress, and we will all have the ability to influence which procedures continue to be covered. Also, private charity can come to the rescue if the majority of Americans votes for letting the elderly die early.
There may be some abuse with regard to 'bum' panels, but you can be sure that if the government errs it will err on allowing more people to be bums than should be allowed.
So there is no fear that truly disabled people will be forced to pick lettuce.
90% of the problem is not the idea of insurance per se, but insurance companies co-opting the legislative process to make meaningful competition nearly impossible.
Your Seven Point Plan (sounds like something out of China) would agree with the modern insurance cabal in prohibiting proven-successful doctor’s office arrangements where, for a fixed monthly fee the doctor will treat anything in his office that can be treated in an office. (If you need a hospital that is a different affair.) Real world data shows that this has not resulted in a surge of malingerers.
Why have any adjudication at all on “bums”? This is an extremely nannyish provision.
By the way in #11 you say nothing about “life sustaining procedures.” Why suddenly now so GENEROUS, Mr. Fardels?
“share of their premiums is going toward profits, administrative overhead and advertising, as opposed to covering medical claims.”
I can give a very, very good guess.....35 to 38%.
MediCare is administered in this very same state for a mandated overhead of 7(seven)%.
This plan proposes to do away with all insurance payments and payouts. It may turn out to be total nonsense, but it seems like it might be something that turns out to make more sense than a first glance would reveal.
I didn't say they were points. And even if they were the only thing this would have in common with a Chinese plan is that the plan could be separated into definable parts.
Just because something can be clearly defined in several parts doesn't make it Chinese or Communist or anything else bad you would like to associate it with. Capitalist corporations are forever coming up with multi-point plans to increase shareholder value, improve productivity, etc.
"prohibiting proven-successful doctor’s office arrangements where, for a fixed monthly fee the doctor will treat anything in his office that can be treated in an office."
How would the proposed plan be so much different than fee for service? How would this hurt customers or doctors if each of us had to pay directly for each expense incurred? The doctors are only offering monthly payments in exchange for unlimited office visits in order to make that payment arrangement match as close as possible to the insurance payment system. If the insurance payment system is eliminated, then they can go to the car repair model: each expense requires a separate payment.
"Real world data shows that this has not resulted in a surge of malingerers."
Whether or not the current system that doctor's use is subject to malingerers is not pertinent. If it turns out that the plan I proposed is not subject to malingering, then we save that expense. I was just trying to be fair and assuming that some people would try to game the system, and that some safeguards would need to be put in place to discourage that behavior.
If someone generates no income then they can claim free medical under the proposed plan. If U.S. citizens are OK with this then we should spend no money trying to identify malingerers.
It may be that people would rather work and pay for their medical expenses than live forever on welfare. I hope that is the case.
My initial proposal only eliminated a few non-necessary medical procedures such as cosmetic surgery. Logically one could infer that the proposal covers everything else including end-of-life medical treatment, however costly.
So I am not all of a sudden being so generous.
Pay for your health care or lie down in the street and die!
No one is entitled to health care.
It's a privilege not a right!
If the parent owns the house free and clear then they have the ability under the U.S. Constitution and their state constitution to will it to their child. But if there are liens, then the house might have to be sold to pay off the liens. It's not socialistic for a person to have to pay off a lien even if that lien is owed to a government entity.
I certainly hope that some of the companies that got government money will pay off their debts.
Most people would do better with a tax break and pay for their own long-term care insurance.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.