Who could have seen this coming?
WASHINGTON — Health insurance companies around the country are seeking rate increases of 20 percent to 40 percent or more, saying their new customers under the Affordable Care Act turned out to be sicker than expected. Federal officials say they are determined to see that the requests are scaled back.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans — market leaders in many states — are seeking rate increases that average 23 percent in Illinois, 25 percent in North Carolina, 31 percent in Oklahoma, 36 percent in Tennessee and 54 percent in Minnesota, according to documents posted online by the federal government and state insurance commissioners and interviews with insurance executives.
The Oregon insurance commissioner, Laura N. Cali, has just approved 2016 rate increases for companies that cover more than 220,000 people. Moda Health Plan, which has the largest enrollment in the state, received a 25 percent increase, and the second-largest plan, LifeWise, received a 33 percent increase.
Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, attended a speech by President Obama on Thursday.
Jesse Ellis O’Brien, a health advocate at the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group, said: “Rate increases will be bigger in 2016 than they have been for years and years and will have a profound effect on consumers here. Some may start wondering if insurance is affordable or if it’s worth the money.”
President Obama, on a trip to Tennessee this week, said that consumers should put pressure on state insurance regulators to scrutinize the proposed rate increases. If commissioners do their job and actively review rates, he said, “my expectation is that they’ll come in significantly lower than what’s being requested.”
The rate requests, from some of the more popular health plans, suggest that insurance markets are still adjusting to shock waves set off by the Affordable Care Act.
It is far from certain how many of the rate increases will hold up on review, or how much they might change. But already the proposals, buttressed with reams of actuarial data, are fueling fierce debate about the effectiveness of the health law. A study of 11 cities in different states by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that consumers would see relatively modest increases in premiums if they were willing to switch plans. But if they switch plans, consumers would have no guarantee that they can keep their doctors. And to get low premiums, they sometimes need to accept a more limited choice of doctors and hospitals.
More at the NY Times
Yep, this is some money-saver, alright. Great job, Obama. Great job, Obama voters. You sure proved all the nay-sayers wrong, didn’t you?
Here’s why:
Moda of Oregon says that its claims were 139 percent of revenue, making for a margin of -61 percent. (It LOST money per insured individual.)
Health Service Corporation of New Mexico says it lost $23 million on revenue of $121 million. (It also LOST money per insured individual.)
CareFirst of Maryland says that claims were 120 percent of revenue. (It, too, LOST money per insured individual.)
Tennessee told the Wall Street Journal that it lost $141 million on exchange plans last year. (The entire state LOST money per insured individual.)
Humana just gave up.
It was sold to another insurer for $37billion in hopes that money can be made by more volume of expensive insured individuals.
Obama had been hounding insurers into keeping rates low while he is president even though they can’t make money.
His incentive programs to prop them them p ends in 2016.
To survive, all the insurers will then have to charge enough to make money or, leave the exchanges.
In CA, everyone using the exchanges is paying an extra $14.95/month just for the privilege of being on the exchange!
That’s a drag on their health-care dollars they don’t need.
On the obamacare/SCOTUS thread, I tried 3 times to respond to a post, and all three times the post did not go through. I even tried on different computers.
The Cliff’s note version I will put here.
1. Obamacare is not designed to improve medical insurance coverage, nor cut costs, despite all the obamacare propagandists’ lies. It was solely designed to wreck the private medical insurance industry so enough uninformed people would agree to the socialist takeover of medicine.
2. People like George Wells, who claim, “Of COURSE it is impossible to insure X number of millions and cut costs..” refuse to admit that Obama either knowingly lied when he said obamacare would cut costs in order to confuse enough of the uneducated, or he is too stupid to understand basic economics.
3. There is no moral justification for obamacare supporters in claiming “I never said that obamacare would cut costs” – because if you KNEW that Obama propaganda was a lie, you are admitting you knowingly supported something that was based on lies.
4. It is contemptibly false “concern” that leftists spout in their bogus talking point when they wail over the horror for those ~10 million currently subsidized by taxpayers with obamacare policies should obamacare be overturned and said 10 million lose their taxpayer-provided coverage. Compare that with the sniffing disdain the leftists expressed for the millions who lost their insurance coverage -despite Obama stating they would not lose their existing coverage “if they liked it” – and were forced into the much more expensive socialist-model obamacare plans.
5. The mendacious hypocrisy of the left is shown quite clearly in evaluation of the SCOTUS King ruling compounded by Obama’s unconstitutional delay of the date of implementation of the employer mandate of his abominable trojan horse effort for government takeover of medicine. In the former, the clear wording of the law (along with the multiple videos of Gruber clarifying the wording – that only states that set up their own exchanges would get tax subsidies for the outrageous cost of obamacare plans – obvious coercion) was totally ignored by the ridiculous “intent of Congress” blather. In the latter, despite the clearly defined implementation date of 1 Jan 2014 for imposition of the employer mandate, Obama simply delayed the start of the law in complete violation of the separation of powers limitations on the Executive branch. This is the left at its core – laws no longer mean what the words say, but are only to be interpreted as the leftist tyrants allow.
You are only fooling yourself if you ever believe that a leftist is capable of being honest, or that they care anything about doing what is right and practical. Leftists are so impressed with their self-delusions of importance and superiority, that they believe they have the right to control the lives of every one else. They are totalitarians at heart, and due to the inherent weakness of their positions, they cannot tolerate the presence of opposing ideas.