WSJ: No, You Can't Keep Your Health Plan

[steve2470]

President Obama guaranteed Americans that after health reform became law they could keep their insurance plans and their doctors. It's clear that this promise cannot be kept. Insurers and physicians are already reshaping their businesses as a result of Mr. Obama's plan.

The health-reform law caps how much insurers can spend on expenses and take for profits. Starting next year, health plans will have a regulated "floor" on their medical-loss ratios, which is the amount of revenue they spend on medical claims. Insurers can only spend 20% of their premiums on running their plans if they offer policies directly to consumers or to small employers. The spending cap is 15% for policies sold to large employers.

This regulation is going to have its biggest impact on insurance sold directly to consumers—what's referred to as the "individual market." These policies cost more to market. They also have higher medical costs, owing partly to selection by less healthy consumers.

Finally, individual policies have high start-up costs. If insurers cannot spend more of their revenue getting plans on track, fewer new policies will be offered.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703315404575250264210294510.html

more at link above

Please critique this.... thanks.

[John Q. Citizen]

1. Same if your kids are currently on CHIP. You will have to be moved onto Medicaide.

I want single payer and I vote.

[Unvanguard]

2. This is what cost controls are.

The alternative is giving insurance companies free reign--which most of us are rightly against.

[Oregone]

4. This mechanism creates strong upward pressure on prices

Law of unintended consequences

[Unvanguard]

9. What mechanism? n/t

[Oregone]

13. Controlling Medical Loss Ratio

If you limit someone's slice of the pie, but allow them to control the overall size of the pie, its in their best interests to make sure that pie is as big as possible. Remember...insurers still directly negotiate billing rates for services. They don't care about how much those rates are, as long as their "competitors" follow suite. The higher the rates (that 80-85% of premiums), the higher their cut.

[bluestateguy]

3. The critique is that it's from the Wall Street Journal editorial page

Thereby making it crap.

[customerserviceguy]

5. If premiums

stay the same, rise at the same rates as before, or even go down (I don't remotely see how that's possible, but some people here during the HCR debate were actually touting it) then it's crap.

If they rise dramatically, then it's not crap. My bet is on the latter.

[Arkana]

6. Yeah, the Wall Street Journal is CERTAINLY a bastion

of impartial, fair journalism. :sarcasm:

[emulatorloo]

7. News part wasn't bad before Rupert Murdoch bought it. Editorial page always BATSHIT CRAZY

And it is not like Murdoch is a moderating influence or anything, is it? Best use for the WSJ is to wrap fish or line the cat litter box.

[zipplewrath]

8. This is a real mix of assumptions

You'll be able to "keep" your current insurance, to the extent that you ever could. My insurance has changed significantly about every 5 years in the 25 years I've worked for my employer. The rising cost of health CARE is why. Mine was changing before HCR ever came around. Will it "react" to HCR? Yes it will. But honestly, it was going to be changing more and more anyway.

Look, I'm no big supporter of the Health Insurance Industry Stimulus Package. But the biggest reason was because it didn't really address the underlying cost of health CARE. It mostly just addressed the underlying cost of health INSURANCE. It will change the nature of the health insurance you have. Some of it for the better, some of it will be more expensive for you, especially in the longer term. But it was going to get more expensive ANYWAY. The real problem of HCR isn't that it is making things more expensive, it is that it is not doing anything to particularly stop that problem, and it will interfere with our ability to actually address anything approaching single payer or a public option.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. I think I decimated this crap here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8391697&mesg_id=8391697

Big pile of lies.

[steve2470]

12. Thank you sir :)) nt

[Yellow Horse]

11. I can't keep my health plan because I didn't have any to keep.

Unless you call my plan "don't get sick and if you do, die quickly."

We really need single payer and SOMEday we'll probably get there. I just hope I live to see it.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[KonaKane]

15. This article is conflating market changes with government policy.

In other words, the WSJ is lying it's filthy ass off yet again. Obama's bill said in very clear language that people with their own private health plans could keep them. That language also made it into the final act that was passed. It is incontrovertable fact. However the government cannot (and ironically, shouldn't according to the WSJers) interfere with or attempt to control markets. If those markets mean insurance companies can no longer carry their clients that meet a certain criteria, then obviously they will not be their health care provider. That has nothing to do with what the government officially allows or not.

Reading anything from the Wallstreet Journal should be approached like reading anything from JK Rowling: Be prepared to be entertained, but don't assume it's real.