‘The Affordable Care Act: 5 Years Later’ (WH.gov)

[IIFFOFRDB]

THE RIGHT PRESCRIPTION
READY FOR ANOTHER OBAMACARE PRICE HIKE?
The price of “free” health care is about to go up again.


By David Catron


In July of 2009, as the Obamacare debate was heating up, Gallup published a survey indicating that 83 percent of Americans wanted health care reform to make their health insurance more affordable. Now, more than five years after the President’s “signature domestic achievement” was passed, health insurance premiums are higher than ever. And it’s obvious that Obamacare is a major driver of the increase. The Wall Street Journal reports that insurers are proposing rate increases ranging from 25 to 51 percent for 2016. Why? “All of them cite high medical costs incurred by people newly enrolled under the Affordable Care Act.”

Obamacare apologists suggest different causes, of course. Jonathan Cohn writes, “One reason could be the normal and predictable competition among insurance plans jostling for market share.” Cohn’s grasp of economics is so tenuous that he doesn’t know insurers compete for market share by reducing premiums. He also connects the increases to anxiety about that bête noire of Obamacarians everywhere, King v. Burwell: “If the court rules in favor of the plaintiffs… millions will drop their coverage because they will no longer be able to afford it.” Cohn evidently thinks insurers will respond by making insurance even less affordable.

The real reason for the proposed increases is that insurers now have real data on real Obamacare enrollees rather than implausible projections from the Obama administration. And this new information makes it clear that they’ll lose their shirts if they sell coverage at anything resembling 2015 rates. Many young, healthy individuals have refused to buy pricy Obamacare coverage, leaving insurance carriers with sluggish premium streams out of which to pay the large dollar claims coming in from seriously ill patients willing to buy coverage regardless of cost. This dynamic has already caused a number of health insurers to incur huge losses.


Obviously, not even an evil insurance company can stay in business if it consistently loses large amounts of money. Earlier this month, Assurant Health announced that losses related to Obamacare are causing it to close its doors. Western Journalism reports, “The company and industry watchers blamed its losses directly on the impact of Obamacare.… Assurant lost $63.7 million in 2014. The insurer raised its rates by 20 percent in 2015, in hopes of returning to profitability, but lost between $80 to $90 million during the first quarter of this year.” The company has been in business for 123 years and provides coverage for 1 million people.

Assurant is based in Wisconsin, but insurers all across the country are attempting to survive the same perverse incentives that finally undid that venerable company. The Journal lists proposed increases by companies offering plans through exchanges in Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington state. And many of these companies are already losing huge amounts of money: “BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee… lost $141 million from exchange-sold plans, stemming largely from a small number of sick enrollees.” It is asking for a 36.3 percent rate increase.

All of which suggests that the “premium stabilization” safeguards ostensibly meant to prevent Obamacare from sending the health insurance industry into a death spiral aren’t working. The “reinsurance program,” as Philip Klein explains at the Washington Examiner, “slaps fees on insurance policies and uses the revenue to funnel payments to insurers to compensate them for taking on individuals with a high-risk profile.” “Risk corridors” are a corporate redistribution scheme whereby the government uses the profits of some insurers to offset the losses of others. But, as Klein points out, both programs will be gone after 2016.

If disasters like Assurant and BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee are occurring while these programs remain in place, what will happen when they’re gone? Well, we’ll have more insurers proposing hair-raising rate increases in order to avoid the fate of Assurant. But, not to worry, says Charles Gaba at HealthInsurance.org, upon whom the erstwhile “Citizen Cohn” rather desperately relies upon as the voice of reason: “These requested rate changes are being submitted to the state insurance commissioner’s office… and in most states either the commissioner or some other regulatory body has to either approve the requests or deny them.”

In other words, some state bureaucrat may simply deny the insurance company’s rate request and impose a more “appropriate” premium. This means that, in New Mexico, Health Care Service Corp. may get a mere 25 percent increase rather than the 51 percent it has proposed. In Tennessee, Blue Cross may get only 20 percent rather than the requested 36.3 percent increase. In Maryland, the state bureaucrats may decide that, instead of a 30.4 percent increase, Blue Shield may only get 18 percent. All of these outcomes have one thing in common: The rate goes up by double digits. That means you pay a higher premium no matter how it turns out.

In other words, in the best case scenario, the your health insurance premiums are going up. And this is not simply because Obamacare has been unable to accomplish the main thing most Americans wanted from health reform in first place—more affordable medical care. Barack Obama’s “signature domestic achievement” is actually making health care less affordable. Good job, Mr. President. Please use the rest of your term perfecting your chip shot.


Read more at http://spectator.org/articles/62831/...are-price-hike

[IIFFOFRDB]

more... http://benefitrevolution.blogspot.co...for-hefty.html

http://www.wsj.com/articles/health-i...sts-1432244042

MONDAY, MAY 25, 2015

Health Insurers Asking for Hefty Premium Increases in 2016

Readers of this blog know that we forecast significant premium increases from 2016 to 2018 as insurers begin to feel the full impact of:

Adverse selection in the Exchanges (death spiral); and
The phasing out of the taxpayer funded transfer payments to insurers under the "Three R's Program" (insurer bailouts).

It looks like the severe increases are underway. This is from the Wall Street Journal:

"Major insurers in some states are proposing hefty rate boosts for plans sold under the federal health law, setting the stage for an intense debate this summer over the law’s impact.

In New Mexico, market leader Health Care Service Corp. is asking for an average jump of 51.6% in premiums for 2016. The biggest insurer in Tennessee, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, has requested an average 36.3% increase.

In Maryland, market leader CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield wants to raise rates 30.4% across its products. Moda Health, the largest insurer on the Oregon health exchange, seeks an average boost of around 25%.

All of them cite high medical costs incurred by people newly enrolled under the Affordable Care Act.

Under that law, insurers file proposed rates to their local regulator and, in most cases, to the federal government. Some states have begun making the filings public, as they prepare to review the requests in coming weeks. The federal government is due to release its rate filings in early June.

Insurance regulators in many states can force carriers to scale back requests they can’t justify. The Obama administration can ask insurers seeking increases of 10% or more to explain themselves, but cannot force them to cut rates. Rates will become final by the fall.

“After state and consumer rate review, final rates often decrease significantly,” said Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency overseeing the health law. ...

Insurers say their proposed rates reflect the revenue they need to pay claims, now that they have had time to analyze their experience with the law’s requirement that they offer the same rates to everyone—regardless of medical history. ...

.

[Whirlaway]

Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster....states are scrambling to figure out how to pay for the out of control spiraling costs of their exchanges.

With major insurers in some states proposing up to 51 percent Obamacare insurance premium increases, liberal Democrats are scrambling to avoid a political and financial disaster. One proposal is to merge California’s financially troubled “Covered California” exchange with the even more insolvent state exchanges, like “Cover Oregon,” which was forced to shut down last year.

Obamacare provided $4.8 billion in federal funding for 13 states to set up their own independent healthcare exchanges. But after just 17 months of operations, spending has frittered away that money and most exchanges are experiencing serious cash-flow problems. The Covered California exchange is already running an $80 million deficit as of April, and the Cover Oregon was shut down in April 2014 and opted to transition to the federal system after blowing through $248 million in federal cash.

Oregon and Nevada have already shut down their exchanges, and Hawaii Health Connector, after blowing through $205 million in federal cash, is nearing a shutdown after the state legislature rejected an emergency $10 million funding request.

The costs for running Vermont’s Obamacare exchange for a population of only 626,562 is expected to rise to $200 million this year, while California, with 37 million residents, is running an $80 million deficit in just the first four months of the year. Both spectacularly overestimated expected enrollment and are trying to make major cutbacks for advertising, outreach budget and technology services. Neither has announced any public sector job cuts.

That “enrollment problem” may get much worse, given that some insurance companies in several states are asking for shockingly high premium rate increases. New Mexico’s market leader Health Care Service Corp. is asking for an average premium spike of 51.6 percent; Tennessee’s top insurer BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee wants an average spike of 36.3%; Maryland’s market leader CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield is requesting an average spike of 30.4%; and Oregon’s top insurer, Moda Health, is seeking a 25% spike.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...are-exchanges/

[Guest040616]

Is this another Benghazi thread?

[Whirlaway]

If SCOTUS overturns, the GOP Congress will roll out legislation that will keep the exchanges (and subsidies) thru 2016, then let them expire.

We will be back to the healthcare insurance debate in 2017.

[Whirlaway]

The Village Idiot is wandering around lost, wondering where he is at.......

Originally Posted by bigtex

Is this another Benghazi thread?

[gnadfly]

Originally Posted by Whirlaway

The Village Idiot is wandering around lost, wondering where he is at.......

Bigkotex always knows where he is: near a bottle.

As I posted before, my brother's insurance company has already said they were pulling out of the state next year.

[Unique_Carpenter]

Bookie:
book•mak•er
(bʊkˌmeɪ kər)

n.
A person who makes a business of accepting the bets of others on the outcome of events.

[flghtr65]

Originally Posted by IIFFOFRDB

THE RIGHT PRESCRIPTION
READY FOR ANOTHER OBAMACARE PRICE HIKE?
The price of “free” health care is about to go up again.


By David Catron


In July of 2009, as the Obamacare debate was heating up, Gallup published a survey indicating that 83 percent of Americans wanted health care reform to make their health insurance more affordable. Now, more than five years after the President’s “signature domestic achievement” was passed, health insurance premiums are higher than ever. And it’s obvious that Obamacare is a major driver of the increase. The Wall Street Journal reports that insurers are proposing rate increases ranging from 25 to 51 percent for 2016. Why? “All of them cite high medical costs incurred by people newly enrolled under the Affordable Care Act.”

Obamacare apologists suggest different causes, of course. Jonathan Cohn writes, “One reason could be the normal and predictable competition among insurance plans jostling for market share.” Cohn’s grasp of economics is so tenuous that he doesn’t know insurers compete for market share by reducing premiums. He also connects the increases to anxiety about that bête noire of Obamacarians everywhere, King v. Burwell: “If the court rules in favor of the plaintiffs… millions will drop their coverage because they will no longer be able to afford it.” Cohn evidently thinks insurers will respond by making insurance even less affordable.

The real reason for the proposed increases is that insurers now have real data on real Obamacare enrollees rather than implausible projections from the Obama administration. And this new information makes it clear that they’ll lose their shirts if they sell coverage at anything resembling 2015 rates. Many young, healthy individuals have refused to buy pricy Obamacare coverage, leaving insurance carriers with sluggish premium streams out of which to pay the large dollar claims coming in from seriously ill patients willing to buy coverage regardless of cost. This dynamic has already caused a number of health insurers to incur huge losses.


Obviously, not even an evil insurance company can stay in business if it consistently loses large amounts of money. Earlier this month, Assurant Health announced that losses related to Obamacare are causing it to close its doors. Western Journalism reports, “The company and industry watchers blamed its losses directly on the impact of Obamacare.… Assurant lost $63.7 million in 2014. The insurer raised its rates by 20 percent in 2015, in hopes of returning to profitability, but lost between $80 to $90 million during the first quarter of this year.” The company has been in business for 123 years and provides coverage for 1 million people.

Assurant is based in Wisconsin, but insurers all across the country are attempting to survive the same perverse incentives that finally undid that venerable company. The Journal lists proposed increases by companies offering plans through exchanges in Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington state. And many of these companies are already losing huge amounts of money: “BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee… lost $141 million from exchange-sold plans, stemming largely from a small number of sick enrollees.” It is asking for a 36.3 percent rate increase.

All of which suggests that the “premium stabilization” safeguards ostensibly meant to prevent Obamacare from sending the health insurance industry into a death spiral aren’t working. The “reinsurance program,” as Philip Klein explains at the Washington Examiner, “slaps fees on insurance policies and uses the revenue to funnel payments to insurers to compensate them for taking on individuals with a high-risk profile.” “Risk corridors” are a corporate redistribution scheme whereby the government uses the profits of some insurers to offset the losses of others. But, as Klein points out, both programs will be gone after 2016.

If disasters like Assurant and BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee are occurring while these programs remain in place, what will happen when they’re gone? Well, we’ll have more insurers proposing hair-raising rate increases in order to avoid the fate of Assurant. But, not to worry, says Charles Gaba at HealthInsurance.org, upon whom the erstwhile “Citizen Cohn” rather desperately relies upon as the voice of reason: “These requested rate changes are being submitted to the state insurance commissioner’s office… and in most states either the commissioner or some other regulatory body has to either approve the requests or deny them.”

In other words, some state bureaucrat may simply deny the insurance company’s rate request and impose a more “appropriate” premium. This means that, in New Mexico, Health Care Service Corp. may get a mere 25 percent increase rather than the 51 percent it has proposed. In Tennessee, Blue Cross may get only 20 percent rather than the requested 36.3 percent increase. In Maryland, the state bureaucrats may decide that, instead of a 30.4 percent increase, Blue Shield may only get 18 percent. All of these outcomes have one thing in common: The rate goes up by double digits. That means you pay a higher premium no matter how it turns out.

In other words, in the best case scenario, the your health insurance premiums are going up. And this is not simply because Obamacare has been unable to accomplish the main thing most Americans wanted from health reform in first place—more affordable medical care. Barack Obama’s “signature domestic achievement” is actually making health care less affordable. Good job, Mr. President. Please use the rest of your term perfecting your chip shot.


Read more at http://spectator.org/articles/62831/...are-price-hike

IFFY, Insurance companies (Health or Auto) will not make a profit if most of their policyholders are HIGH RISK. The insurance companies can only make a profit when premiums collected exceed the claims paid out. They knew that a lot of high risk people were going to buy health insurance on the government exchanges. If your pre-existing condition was cancer, no health insurance company was going to sell you a policy prior to the ACA being passed ( See the crude explanation of Insurance by J.D. Barleycorn where he talks about being kept off the lifeboat).

Risk Corridors is not a new concept , Medicare PartD , which was signed into law by BUSH43 had the same idea. The insurance companies that lose money in the first couple of years get help from the federal government, after that they are on their own. You have any problems with Medicare Part D?

[LexusLover]

Originally Posted by flghtr65

IFFY, Insurance companies (Health or Auto) will not make a profit if most of their policyholders are HIGH RISK. The insurance companies can only make a profit when premiums collected exceed the claims paid out. They knew that a lot of high risk people were going to buy health insurance on the government exchanges. If your pre-existing condition was cancer, no health insurance company was going to sell you a policy prior to the ACA being passed ( See the crude explanation of Insurance by J.D. Barleycorn where he talks about being kept off the lifeboat).

What you just described is the basis for the lies by Obaminable regarding "keeping" your insurance and your doctors. The only way his Ponzi scheme was going to work is for the government to control costs and premiums. Step two is "national health insurance," which was (and is) the goal of those pushing for government regulated health care for all persons in the U.S. Once "they" drive the insurance companies out of the business, the government steps in and takes over the field.

That's not new either.

[Yssup Rider]

SNICK!

[Whirlaway]

Pre-existing conditions could have been easily covered without Obamacare; without destroying the good health insurance that most Americans had, without creating a massive federal bureaucracy, and without jacking up most everyone's premiums and deductibles.

Most importantly, pre-existing conditions could have easily been covered without Obama having to lie to the American public.

Pre existing condition consumers could have been placed in a high risk insurance pool and federal subsidies provided.......simple, would have had bi-partisan support, and wouldn't require massive reorganizing of our insurance paradigm.

But Obama wanted the massive federal bureaucracy to take over a significant portion of the health insurance....part of his transformation...making Americans more dependent on the federal government.

[Guest123018-4]

The goal has always been a "single payer system" which is government speak for the taxpayer. Those that will not be contributing to the system and continuing to be takers rather than contributors are the only beneficiaries of such a system.

[flghtr65]

Originally Posted by LexusLover

What you just described is the basis for the lies by Obaminable regarding "keeping" your insurance and your doctors. The only way his Ponzi scheme was going to work is for the government to control costs and premiums. Step two is "national health insurance," which was (and is) the goal of those pushing for government regulated health care for all persons in the U.S. Once "they" drive the insurance companies out of the business, the government steps in and takes over the field.

That's not new either.

LL, your argument is simply not valid.

1. The health insurance companies control what the price of the premium and deductible will be. The health insurance companies decide if they are going to sell policies in the individual market on the government exchanges. The health insurance companies control which doctors are in their network (not the Federal Government) and this can change from year to year.

2. Their were grandfather rules in the ACA to allow people to keep their old policies. The health insurance companies simply did not comply with that rule. They did not want to maintain two types of policies in their system in most cases. Some insurance companies followed the rule most did not.

3. The health insurance companies are not being driven out of business. For the last accounting year some health insurance companies lost money in certain states because a majority of the policyholders in that state were high risk and claims paid out was greater than premiums collected. The individual mandate was put in place to get low risk people to sign up. There is no Ponzi scheme. In auto insurance All State, State Farm, Geico, Farmers, etc. are not going to make a profit if all of their policyholders are bad drivers and have accidents. The risk pool has to have a mix.

4. It's true that Harry Reid wants a single payer system. The committee that was chaired by the former Senator Max Baucus did not have that goal when they wrote the ACA legislation and voted to pass the bill out of committee and to the floor of the senate where all bills go before they can be passed into law.

All of the committee meetings on the ACA bill were televised on C-SPAN at night if you wanted to watch. Check your local cable system provider to see if they have C-SPAN.

[flghtr65]

Originally Posted by The2Dogs

The goal has always been a "single payer system" which is government speak for the taxpayer. Those that will not be contributing to the system and continuing to be takers rather than contributors are the only beneficiaries of such a system.

Moron, the ACA law effects only 20% of the population of people under age 65. Eighty percent of the population get their health insurance from their employer. In the individual market you contribute to the purchase of your policy if your income falls in the category of (Family of 4 and income is > $24,000). A majority of the USA falls in this income range.

Go take your meds and go back to sleep. You are clueless.