Health insurers say they plan to raise premiums for some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul in coming weeks, complicating Democrats’ efforts to trumpet their signature achievement before the midterm elections.
Aetna Inc., some BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators.
These and other insurers say Congress’s landmark refashioning of U.S. health coverage, which passed in March after a brutal fight, is causing them to pass on more costs to consumers than Democrats predicted.
Anyone with two connected brain cells knew that Obamacare would cost more. If they couldn’t figure it out on their own, the Congressional Budget Office told them it would cost over $2 Trillion. This is what happens when you “have to pass it before we can know what is in it” thinking sets in. Then, there is all the extra “health care” stuff thrown into the mix, like all the 1099s for EVERY transaction over $500…tens of millions of new tax forms (Gosh, how many trees must die before the democrat tax machine’s thirst will be slaked?). Of course, we can’t forget how closely student loans are linked to health care in the new law. Who would have guessed that student loans were an essential part of healthcare. No one but the current crop of democrats…the ones that turned a deaf ear to around 80% of the folks the allegedly represent and passed the law against their wishes…the ones that lied about transparency and giving us all a chance to look it over and respond before they passed it…the ones that promised to work in a bipartisan fashion, but when they got into power said, “We won, get over it”!
Well, all I can say is that I hope the ones who passed Obamacare end up unemployed by January and that its namesake will follow them in two years. Now, will the RINOs and Republicrats have the sand to repeal Obamacare? If history is any judge, the answer is a clear “NO”. The only good thing I have to say about the Republicrats is that they aren’t quite as bad as the real democrats.
This 2 party system is broken. I don’t hold out much hope for the Republic .
I’m not quite as pessimistic about our republic’s chances, but I’m quite sure that a revolution of sorts is in the works, and it will start at the ballot box. Unfortunately, those politicians who are most concerned about their continued employment prospects in the Senate and the House are mostly well-heeled and can retire with the knowledge that they are safe and secure with that excellent healthcare that they’ve provided for themselves and their families at taxpayers’ expense, while the rest of the country has to scrabble for whatever coverage they can afford, or do without…..and we mustn’t forget their nice fat retirement pensions, either.
As I predicted. When BHO signed that legislation he was really signing the death warrant for many of its supporter’s political careers.
This is exactly why I was skeptical of this particular reform and never personally supported it. Democrats were not able to assure me of several things, not the least of which was basic economics: cost goes up, price to consumer goes up. Forcing insurers to carry all these extra benefits and things had to have raised the costs, and costs get passed on to purchasers. Unlike federal government, private groups can’t just eat the spike in operating expenses and balance it out with more borrowing of money.
I also had issues with the underhanded way the bill got passed. The Democrats were convinced if they got it passed by whatever means, the ends justified those means. What’s ending up happening is that the moderate democrats who had logical issues with it or outright opposed it are the ones who are going to go down in flames during the election because the majority of their constituents outright rejected it. Those voters are going to take it out on the Democrats who actually listened to the people because its guilt by association in many outraged voter’s minds.
This is what particularly troubles me because its the moderate, centrist voices in Congress (voices I applaud) that are going to take the fall in the election, even though it was an issue not of their own making. I think that will actually weaken what few centrists there are left in Washington.
We need a systemic change not just a change of parties and the only way to get that is by means of a Constitutional Convention. Both parties and the federal courts subvert the Constitution just in different areas.
Oh, and on insurance companies. Everyone should know that insurance premiums should be priced based on sound actuarial principles. That is, such that the eventual claims can be paid for. An insurance company that under prices its products is on the way to insolvency. Needless to say Obama and the politicians have every incentive to under price the policies. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ought to come to mind.
As I said, the revolution is on its way, and lot of politicians……good and not-so-good……are going to be out of office after the elections. But remember this, too: Most are professionals…..lawyers, in fact, and they’ll always have work. The rest of us may not be so fortunate.
Blue Cross raises our insurance 15% every year anyway and has been doing so for a decade. Nothing new here except that they can blame it on Obama this year.
#8, no kidding!!! Every year health care costs have gone up & insurance premiums have gone up. But now, it’s all Obama’s fault because some legislation which hasn’t even taken any real effect yet was passed. People are so blinded by their politics that it’s funny (and that’s funny in a disheartening sorta way, not ha-ha funny).
#8 & #9,
I guess you all didn’t bother to read the article (sort of like how the democrats didn’t bother to read the health care bill before passing it into law). If you had you might have picked up on the following:
[blockquote]Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon said the cost of providing additional benefits under the health law will account on average for 3.4 percentage points of a 17.1% premium rise for a small-employer health plan.[/blockquote]
If reading is too much work, you could at least have looked at the graph.
#9 should think about his own comment a bit: “People are so blinded by their politics that it’s funny (and that’s funny in a disheartening sorta way, not ha-ha funny).” It is true what he said there, but the irony is rather deep.
> Blue Cross raises our insurance 15% every year anyway and has been doing so for a decade. Nothing new here except that they can blame it on Obama this year.
Except that this huge change to how health care works was supposed to STOP the cost escalation.
As a side note, I’m not happy with BC&BS; raising premiums so much either. What I resent is that they are going to go up even higher (taking money from my family) so that I can help pay for folks that didn’t work so hard as me to get what I got. With the governments help, they now get a legal right to steal from me, and the insurance companies are just passing it along (like any business would). It may be “legal”, but it is still stealing from my family and giving it to others that didn’t earn it…just like the recovery money they stole and gave to irresponsible folk that bought more house than they could pay for. Maybe I should just quit and let you all (#8 & #9 et al) support me and my family for a while and see how you like it. Yes sir, maybe I got this wealth transfer all wrong. Maybe I should just quit working hard and let all the big hearted folks that like to pay for things with other folks money start having to pay me for a change!
You NAILED it, Sick and Tired! BIG time!
Sick,
I read it. I stand by my comment. If the rates go up less than 15% (1% to 9% is mentioned above) it will be a relief for me. Requiring healthy young people to buy insurance would seem like a gift to Big Insurance by the way.
If I can wait and then buy car insurance after I total my car and the insurance company has to ignore that my brand new SUV looks like it finished last in the demolition derby, it is not hard to predict the insurance companies will be raising rates.
As I read so many of the comments, I ponder why I am not compelled to weep for the insurance companies, Perhaps it is because the “health reform” is the latest legislation in the ongoing program of Corporate Health and Pharmaceutical Profit Maintenance and Enhancement legislation spewing out of Congress. None of it does much for the health consumer. All of you who worry so compulsively for the poor insurance companies ought to sell your stock in them. Of course, you won’t because all your whining about government meddling only enhances your stock dividends.
It easy to hate the insurance companies and they don’t help themselves in many cases, but an insolvent insurer doesn’t pay claims. If an insurer doesn’t charge adequate premiums it goes broke (insolvent) and is placed into state receivership. Remember if government sets the rates too low the government doesn’t pick up the slack and pay the claims if the insurer goes belly up. And the government will set the rates for political reasons, not on actuarial reasons.