Free Republic

Mandates have consequences, bro The argument has been ever-present, where ObamaCare is concerned, that mandating generous benefits while forbidding insurers from considering factors like pre-existing conditions, could only result in one thing: Sky-high, jacked up premiums for everyone. It’s simple economics. You can’t artificially heighten demand by forcing everyone to buy, while also mandating a gold standard in coverage, and not see prices soar. But Barack Obama thinks the regulatory state can do what the stone-cold laws of the market cannot. So when insurers earlier this year began submitting their rate increase requests to state regulators - and the numbers...

Remember Anthem Blue Cross, and how Obama and Democrats blasted away at them for their rate increases? Remember how they used that issue as the immpetus to impose their health care solution? From CBS: The Obama administration is asking why Anthem Blue Cross is raising its health insurance rates by nearly 40 percent for some California customers while making handsome profits -- and is pointing to the rate hike as evidence of why health care reform needs to pass. Okay. Barry Hussein got his ObamaCare passed. So if there are any other rate increases from any other insurance companies, who...

According to an article by Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/18/AR2010021801345.html?hpid=topnews insurance companies who provide health care coverage for individuals have been pushing to levy huge premium increases on their customers in recent months. Goldstein reports "Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maine is asking that state to approve a 23 percent rise in premiums for its individual-market customers, after state regulators slashed an 18 percent increase that the insurer requested in 2009." Even worse, FOX News reported on Thursday (Feb. 18, 2010) Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of California was seeking increases in premium rates as high as...

<p>WASHINGTON -- The insurance industry yesterday charged that the proposed Senate health-care bill would shift costs to privately insured people, raising the price of a typical policy by hundreds -- if not thousands -- of dollars annually.</p> <p>The trade group America's Health Insurance Plans sent its members a new accounting-firm study that projects the legislation would add $1,700 a year to the cost of family coverage in 2013.</p>