wave of health insurance premium increases coming soon

[Liberal_in_LA]

Health insurance premiums to rise soon for many

More than a million California small-business owners and individual policyholders face a wave of health insurance premium increases in the coming months that range from single digits to as high as 20 percent.

Starting Sunday, about 101,000 Anthem Blue Cross small-group customers will see their premiums go up an average of 13.8 percent but as high as 20.5 percent. At the same time, more than 16,000 small businesses covered by Aetna will receive hikes averaging 3.7 percent. While a few will see decreases, others will get hit with increases of more than 20 percent.

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Anthem Blue Cross customer Alison Heath, 56, of San Francisco will get hit with a 19.7 percent increase effective May 1 - her third increase since October 2010, making for a total increase of 66 percent.

"There's a breaking point somewhere," she said. "I keep feeling like we're awfully close to it."


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/30/BUQS1NS6C3.DTL#ixzz1qk2FbdDu

[Duer 157099]

1. It's like they're *trying* to push us to the breaking point

I just don't understand how it hasn't already happened.

[RKP5637]

3. They'll keep pushing until their profits flatten. I know we have all of the

health care stuff, but with a bought congress I really don't have high hopes for much. And, depending on the decision by SCOTUS, it well might get worse. The criminals have moved into gov. IMO. I don't see how any could not see this country as fascist or damn close to it ... Frankly, IMO, we have a lot of un-American forces at work in this country, far more of a threat than from outside.

[kenny blankenship]

17. They have to. That's what most don't understand.

Last edited Sun Apr 1, 2012, 01:55 AM - Edit history (3)

When i say they have to, I mean they must raise net revenues year over year, or their stock price will start to collapse. Most of these insurers are publicly traded corporations. Such a entity is like a shark: it swims around constantly because it has to eat a lot. It eats a lot because because it has to swim a lot. Only it's worse than a shark. It's a shark that absolutely must eat more and more every year or else everyone in the ocean will be convinced that it's dying and then it will be attacked. This is the sacred "growth" that all corporations seek, and that in a larger sense our capitalist economy must pursue, or else collapse into deflationary depression. Not only does the body of the corporation live and die by the direction of the share price, but the management are largely paid in stock options, so they could give a fuck about people dying or living in fear of getting sick - they are going to work every day with a view to whatever will move share price higher and prevent it from stagnating or falling. If that means your premium goes up each year so hard and fast that you're checking your underwear for blood, they don't care. If that means your kid dies of cancer because they were unwilling to authorize expensive tests for her, and they clung to a nonsensical, inaccurate diagnosis until she was too weak to stand surgery, they don't care. And nothing about any of that is going to change under ACA, my fellow suckers and rubes.

Now you put in place a limit like the Medical Loss Ratio, and what will these corporations do (collectively) in response? How do they adapt? Whereas before they had an incentive to keep their vendors' prices in check, now the only way for their net revenues to grow is strictly in proportion to their gross revenues. They can't cut their way to increased growth: it's unlikely they will be able to steal significant customer base from each other, and the human body isn't becoming more resistant to injury, aging and disease. In other words, their only path to growth is to encourage all their vendors, that is the doctors, pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, to raise their prices as fast as they can, as fast as they want to, at whatever rate the market can take without total collapse. The gross revenue keeps spiraling up, making it look like a good business to be in, stock dividends rise along with revenues, and the all important share price is protected. And while they encourage provider costs to balloon with a nod and a wink, government mandates on individuals and subsidies extracted from taxpayers will be there to keep the total collapse of insurance disenrollment from occurring, at least until we go broke. In short, the Medical Loss Ratio is an invitation to runaway cost inflation. As a pure middleman whose only intrinsic cost is pushing electronic paper around, the insurance mafia will simply encourage the prices charged by all the vendors whom they pay to rise, with all the increases passed on to you, the victim caught in a mandated insurance trap and/or to you the victim, paying with your taxes, the subsidy for other people who can't afford their own insurance. In most cases, you will be doubly victimized as both captive consumer paying for an inflated and often defective product AND as a taxpayer who pays for a no less inflated, and probably even more defective product for someone else.

They HAVE TO keep turning the screws on you like this, and they're GOING TO keep turning the screws on you like this. ACA doesn't change their nature. Anytime someone thinks they can use ACA to put a halt to this screw job, the insurance companies will scream You're breaking our backs, we have to make profits and we're entitled to make profits! We can't continue to do what we do for you without them. Defenders of ACA will jump to point out: "They're OUR SYSTEM - you can't endanger the health of our insurers without endangering the health of the whole system and the 300 plus million Americans it drains the lifebloo - uh the 300 million Americans who DEPEND on it for their own lives and health!"

[Uncle Joe]

21. That's an excellent and insightful post, kenny.

[easttexaslefty]

22. ^^^ this ^^^

[ohheckyeah]

2. The breaking point came for me

already. I had to drop my insurance because it went up $100 a month for the second year in a row. It's not a good feeling not to have it but I did what I had to do.

[Better Believe It]

4. Welcome to the health insurance industry health care "reform".

The parasites are in charge.

[xchrom]

5. Shrug. Whatchya gonna do? Nt

[flamingdem]

6. What about moving to Vermont?

Or England for that matter.

Any other states with progressive programs in the works?

[xchrom]

14. Nice. But not financially viable right now. Nt

[flamingdem]

15. You could take a class in cow milking

or sheep shearing.

[onehandle]

7. Universal Healthcare is an eventuality. nt

[riderinthestorm]

8. Watch out as even more employers drop health insurance coverage for employees. Its already happening

snip

The survey finds over the last decade, premiums for employer-provided health insurance have jumped by 153 percent. The proportion of companies that offer coverage has fallen by more than 13 percent in the last two years alone.

The California Association of Health Plans maintains insurer profits are not to blame for the rise in premiums. But Doug Heller, with the non-profit group Consumer Watchdog, disagrees.

"That money's goin' somewhere, and you and I and everybody knows it's not stickin' in our pockets, it's goin' right to their bank accounts," Heller argued. "Their premiums have gone up five times faster than inflation. It doesn't make sense, and it's gotta stop."

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/jan/05/rising-health-insurance-premiums-causing-more-empl/



And this article is from January. I think there's going to be a snowball effect as more increases occur and more companies bail....

[RKP5637]

10. Yep, most corps. are going to bail on healthcare, eventually, IMO. n/t

[flamingdem]

12. They will take with them a huge chunk of my savings

so anything eventual is not enough for me

[Skidmore]

18. Let them bail.

I believe that the most healthy reform for health care would be to remove insurance from being tied to employment. Second, insurance should be nonprofit and be forced back to the days when insurers had no ties to the banking industry. I think if those dynamics were in place, then it would be easier to get single payer and at the same time to push for more stringent regulatory enforcement for industries which account for pollution and the health effects they are responsible for in the workplace and the general public.

[riderinthestorm]

19. I agree but the short term pain will be unimaginable for so many people.

I think the only way we get single payer is to detach health insurance (and health care) from employment and that's only going to happen when employers stop providing it.

If nothing else Obama's health care reform act opened that door even if it is struck down by SCOTUS. I would assume that virtually ALL human resources departments are having the discussion on whether to continue offering insurance to their employees. When it appeared inevitable that the mandate would force everyone into buying it (and it would have to be offered to everyone), health insurance as an employee "perk" wanes in significance.

Now that its in jeopardy won't stop the convos from happening within corporations.

Furthermore, I don't think it will stop more and more businesses from dropping coverage.

[libtodeath]

9. Leagalized robbery

[uppityperson]

11. WHEN have they EVER gone down? Serious question. Has anyone's insurance premiums ever gone

down for the same benefits? Have you benefits ever increased for the same premium amount?

I am in no way saying this is ok, just that they have gone up. And up. And up. For as long as I can remember. Universal health care is needed.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

16. I was about to make the same point.

When have they stopped increasing?

[RadiationTherapy]

13. This headline is misleading.

It ought to read 'Another wave...'

[jwirr]

20. I just thought of something about insurance and medical care. Medicare D and even many other

government programs such as Medicaid and Medicare now are covered by some insurance company. I have Medica that covers all my needs. If the SCOTUS repeals HRC are these programs also unconstitutional? I did not want to have any none government programs that were through private insurance companies. Sure they let me choose the program I want but there is no public option among the choices.