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Health See other Health Articles Title: Health Insurance Companies Are Dramatically Increasing Premiums Due To The New Health Care Law Kicked In The Groin: Health Insurance Companies Are Dramatically Increasing Premiums Due To The New Health Care Law And There Is Not Much We Can Do About It Wasn't the new health care reform law supposed to make health care more affordable for everyone? Well, imagine my surprise when I opened up a letter from my health insurance company recently and found out that my health insurance premiums were going up by nearly 50 percent. I am in perfect health and I have never had a single health insurance claim with this company. Unfortunately, after doing a little research, I discovered that I am far from alone. All over the United States, people are being hit with double-digit percentage increases in their health insurance premiums even as the health insurance predators continue to rake in record profits. At a time when millions of American families are barely making it from month to month, the last thing they need is to be figuratively kicked in the groin by the health insurance companies. But that is exactly what is happening. Not that health insurance companies ever needed an excuse to raise rates, but in 2010 many of them are blaming changes in health care law for the dramatic rise in premiums. Of course it is true that there are over a dozen new taxes on the health care industry in the "health care reform" law that Barack Obama and the Democrats rammed down the throats of the American people, and everyone should have realized that those taxes would ultimately be passed on to the consumer. But what is also true is that the health insurance companies basically wrote large sections of the health care reform law and health insurance company stocks rose when this new law was passed. So why is this new law so good for health insurance companies? Well, the new health care law requires all of us to purchase health insurance from them. We are no longer going to have the choice of opting out of their system. We are going to be forced to buy health insurance. And since they are all raising rates, there is no escape from the pillaging. As the new health care bill was being debated, Obama promised that the average American family would save $2,500 in yearly premiums under the new law. If any of you still believe that claim I have got a bridge to sell you. The Congressional Budget office says that yearly health insurance premiums are actually going to increase by about $2,300 each year as a result of the new law, but that estimate is probably far, far too low. The truth is that rates are already shooting through the roof. Just consider the following excerpt from a recent article on Fox News.... Here is the terse reason CareFirst/Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Washington gave its subscribers for raising a monthly premium from $333 to $512 on a middle aged man who is healthy, is not a smoker and is not obese: "Your new rate reflects the overall rise in health care costs and we regret having to pass these additional costs on to you." Could you afford to pay $512 a month for health insurance just for yourself? Unfortunately, the truth is that this is nothing new. Many health insurance companies have been increasing health insurance premiums by double-digit percentages year after year after year even as they continue to reel in record profits. In particular, health insurance companies seem to love to stick it to small businesses and the self-employed. According to an article on the Mother Jones website, health insurance premiums for small employers increased 180% between 1999 and 2009. The greed of the health insurance companies seems to know no bounds. For example, the 39% hike that Anthem Blue Cross sent some California customers last year made headlines across the nation. But executives defended the dramatic premium hikes as perfectly justifiable. The reality is that health insurance is becoming so insanely expensive that millions of Americans can't even afford it anymore. But thanks to the new health care law they are being forced to keep shelling out their hard-earned money for it. It is getting really hard for anyone to deny that the health care system in the United States is deeply, deeply broken. The new health care law is not going to reduce costs. It is only going to help the health insurance companies continue to rake in obscene profits. But wasn't the new health care law supposed to prevent the health insurance companies from abusing all of us? Well, as it turns out, the new health care law does not give the federal government much regulatory power at all to prevent premium increases. But what about the states? Can't they do something? Well, yes they can, but unfortunately most state legislatures have been bought off by the health insurance industry. Since 2003, health insurance companies have shelled out more than $42 million in state-level campaign contributions. That is a lot of money, and they wouldn't be spending that kind of money if they did not expect a return for it. "The pressure that the industry can bring to bear in state legislatures is unbelievable," J. Robert Hunter, a former insurance commissioner in the state of Texas recently told the Los Angeles Times. "They pretty much get what they want." The cold, hard reality is that health insurance companies are not in business to help people and provide affordable health care. They are in business to make money and they are very good at it. But there are a few states that have stood up to the health insurance companies. States that have "prior approval" laws have been able to successfully fend off some of the over-the-top rate increases that health insurance companies have been trying to ram down the throats of consumers. For example, the Los Angeles Times recently reported on what has been happening in the state of Oregon.... Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon was forced to cut back a proposed 26.4% increase in one of its individual plans to 17.3%. Other carriers were ordered to scrap altogether hikes as high as 20%. Unfortunately, a number of these states that have these "prior approval" laws are now being sued by insurance companies. That is how these folks work - they will either try to buy off politicians or they will keep filing lawsuits until they get what they want. Meanwhile, the top executives at the five largest for-profit health insurance companies in the United States received nearly $200 million in total compensation in 2009. Are you upset yet? You should be. And you know what? When it finally comes time to actually use your health insurance, these predators will do anything they can to get out of paying up. In fact, it has been documented that some of the largest health insurance companies actually pay their employees large bonuses for denying claims. The employees who deny the most claims are the ones that get the largest bonuses. The health care system in the United States is messed up beyond all recognition, and the new health care law has made things worse than ever. Americans pay more than anyone else in the world for health care, and all that we get in return is a system that is deeply, deeply broken.
Poster Comment: president Obama's 'reforms' made no effort whatsoever to address the main problem of the health care system - that it is just plain too expensive. Medical procedures in our country FREQUENTLY cost several times what they cost in other leading nations. and the drugs you get through the US health care system are extraordinarilly expensive compared to other nations. We're at 18% of gdp on our health care system. No other country is even over 12% of their gpd. this puts our whole economy at a severe disadvantage. It means health care is simply unaffordable. President Obama disappointed many of his supporters when he failed to make it a priority to address this problem. But what we witness in the end is that republicans and democrats together have conspired to give us a super-expensive system that we can't afford. and neither does anything to change it.
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#1. To: Red Jones (#0)
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The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
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The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
I can hardly wait til July of next year when we have "benefits election period". The way it works for my employer, they pay about $1500/month for my insurance. If I choose a plan that only costs $1100 per month, I get the $400 in my paycheck, but it's all considered "salary". On paper, they add that $1500 to my gross pay for a final figure on my annual earnings. I'm interested to see what the new law does to that, either doing away with it altogether, or making us count the extra $1500 supplied by our employer as taxable income.
I could wait a thousand years and never get "interested" !
"To communicate anything to a goy about our religious relations would be equal to the killing of all the Jews, for if the goys knew what we teach about them, they would kill us openly". (Book of Libbre David, 37.)
To the extent that it stands to greatly affect my bottom line, I'm interested.
i can't and won't call him President. let's call a spade a spade laughing...
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The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
This is the best argument for the discarded proposal of a "public option" -- a govt-sponsored insurance policy, with benefits and prices clearly spell out, and the commercial insurance companies would have to compete with it - meaning comparable or better benefits and prices. The competition - with the govt and with other insurance companies - would have been very very good for the consumer.
that is correct. I think that other countries who have brought order to their medical industry do it with a strong 'single-pay' system where their government will have an authority that pays for the medical care. and it will basically dictate how much they will pay for every procedure. and they will make rules that bring order to the market. the medical community simply accepts this and gets paid what they can. and the costs come out a small fraction of what we pay. Another factor is that in our industry the doctors will order extra procedures, extra tests, extra visits because of the threat of lawsuits. I wonder how much cost is taken out of the system when doctors don't have to worry about that. When Obama decided against the 'single-pay' option or public option where the government would try to do that to force costs down, then he blew it. IMHO we shoud get smart consultants from places like the Wharton School of Management and other top business colleges and we should send those people to foreign countries to study their medical systems. We should be figuring out exactly why our medical industry is so expensive and trying to address this. what good is medical care if it is too expensive for our society? let the rich people have their very expensive system if they want to pay for it. The rest of us should be able to have something different. If France and other European countries can achieve a very good health care system at a much lower cost, then we are fools to think that we can't do the same. In my opinion the priority of republicans and democrats concerning health care is to keep the costs high in order to protect profits of health care companies and quite frankly in order to bankrupt us as a government and society.
Revelation 6:6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and [see] thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
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