HHS to insurers: Don't blame us for your rates

President Barack Obama's top health official on Thursday warned the insurance industry that the administration won't tolerate blaming premium hikes on the new health overhaul law.

"There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a letter to the insurance lobby.

"Simply stated, 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," Sebelius said. She warned that bad actors may be excluded from new health insurance markets that will open in 2014 under the law. They'd lose out on a big pool of customers, as many as 30 million people nationwide.

Been reading FR for years, and this is my very first post.
I’ve got to get this off my chest before I scream.

There is no problem with our healthcare. It is the envy of the world, we have the finest Doctors, the best facilities, the most advanced technologies in all related fields, the best access to services.

To say our healthcare system is broken is a lie.

There is a difference between 50 million peoples not having access to health care services and not having insurance.

The true problem with having the best healthcare in history is it is expensive.

The reason it is expensive is because the bills are paid by other people’s money, ie: Insurance companies, and public assistance. Thus, there is no incentive for competitive pricing. The average consumer feels they avoided financial destruction by paying thousands of dollars every year in premiums.

In other words, if you don’t want bad things to happen to you, then you better pay up.

It’s called the protection racket and it’s the second oldest way to make a living. It’s also called extortion.

The entire problem with the healthcare system is not with healthcare, it’s insurance. To mandate that everyone has insurance only serves to make matters worse. Like trying to put out a fire with buckets of gasoline.

The true solution is to establish a system that ensures lowering costs while encouraging even more advancements over our already lofty standards. The only way to achieve the desired results is by injecting the patient with the only proven formula that reduces costs and increases quality. The name of this time tested, undeniably successful panacea, is “free enterprise”.

The average family of four taking home around fifty thousand dollars a year after taxes, spends twenty percent of their after tax money on extortion payments. If a medical crisis occurs every twenty years, then they have spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars on paying for it. If the event costs 170,000 dollars then the insurance company gets to keep 80,000 dollars. If the event costs 330,000 dollars then the insurance company looses 80,000 dollars. Insurance companies like these odds. In fact, that is exactly how they make so much money.

Over your lifetime, your extortion...um, premium payments will exceed half a million dollars. Whatever is not spent on medical bills, the insurance company keeps. Any sane person feels some resentment in those facts and has no interest whatsoever in being proactive about keeping the costs down, in fact, some feel that,” the more those bastards have to spend the better!”.

We have a system where the buyer, who gets mugged every month, pays the seller with money from the thief !

Hardly conducive to having a competitive market. In fact it ensures that prices of both healthcare and health insurance will never go down, instead, it ensures that prices wil always go up.

The medicine for this terminal condition is obvious and will have stunning side effects, rapidly soaring the entire economy to heights never before encountered.

Medical care entities bill the patient directly, all invoices will have the option for installments with terms, or payment in full.

Every person could be required to deposit 20% of any gross income into an interest bearing personal health care savings account. The interest calculated is based on the rate of inflation.

This is their money to keep and spend as they like with the provision that if the money is spent for medicinal purposes then it is tax free. Up ton once every year, you may withdraw up to half of the money, but if not used for healthcare care it would be taxed as income.

The action sets to action a new and powerful dynamic.

At first, prices will settle to what the market can bear.
Then, enterprising people will figure ways to dominate the market by lowering prices, making money thru sheer volume as say a Wal-Mart, Amazon, Sears and so many others. This will force some out of business but will lower the prices across the entire industry.

Mean while, the consumers will be flushed with capital on hand and a feeling of security and confidence. The economy will grow with unbridled stride. Large ticket items will be in high demand, Finding enough workers, not jobs, will be the major problem and the poor will enrich themselves. It would mark the beginning of a new frontier of prosperity.

In Earnest,

RavenLooneyToon

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