Anthem Rate Hikes Just Tip Of Iceberg - Premiums Going Way Up In Six More States

What is missing from much of this conversation is the crucial role played by State regulators, and why the "let them sell insurance across State lines" argument is such a scam. If insurance companies call sell across State lines, they will all set up in the State with the friendliest regulators, and you will never again read that rate increases were rejected. It is not a way to reduce costs for consumers. It is a way to reduce oversight by Insurance Commissioners.

In the meantime, our courageous Senators are boldly standing by to see which the way the wind is blowing, and checking with their corporate sponsors for their voting instructions.

As in the presidential primaries...New Hampshire wants to be first!!!...my wife just recieved a whopping 68% increase in her monthly premium (from $713 to $1198 per month). This is for a "low end plan", $1500 deductible, purchased through a State Small Business association. I have now calculated a 105% increase in our premium costs from 2008 to 2010.

"The report finds that "[w]hile rising health care costs is a known problem with our broken health care system, some of the premium increases requested by insurance companies are 5 to 10 times larger than the growth rate in national health expenditures."

- Yeah, so we will ignore the rising health care costs and just hammer on the insurance! Heckuva change!

Unbridled capitalism at work.

What the Democrats Are Not Doing About Health Care Reform

Item 1:
 “A mere eight months ago (that would be around June 2009), The New York Times/CBS poll found that 72% of Americans ‘supported a government-administered insurance plan—something like Medicare for those under 65—that would compete for customers with private insurers.’”

Item 2: As of February 2010, the Democratic 'reforms' have mandated premium payments to private sector insurers; assured tax payer subsidies to private sector insurers; stipulated a legal guarantee for insurers to spend only 80 cents of every 100 cents on actual health care while spending 20 cents of every 100 cents on lobbying, 'sympathetic' candidates, CEO bonuses, 'administration' and fighting your claim for treatment; dismissed single payer health care reform; and rejected a 'government option',

Item 3: Other than PhARMA and the insurance industry - those who created the sop for themselves - no one (say 72%) supports this Democratic charade.

Question: Why are voters turning against the Democrats?

Answer: The 'change you can believe in' became the bailout of the failed status quo.

Too bad the incompetent fucknuts running HCR strategy for the Democrats couldn't manage to make this argument, say, a *year* ago. The ongoing explosion in health care *premiums* for the middle class voter, along with the unsustainable costs borne by their employers has *always* been the way to win this argument.

The vast majority of Americans just "want to keep my insurance the way it is." You know what? Tough shit, that isn't happen. So get on board, or get uninsured.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of newly laid-off workers filing applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly surged last week after having fallen sharply in the previous week. The gain dampened hopes about how quickly the labor market may improve this year.

The Labor Department said Thursday that first-time claims for unemployment benefits rose by 31,000 to a seasonally adjusted 473,000.

The increase followed a drop of 41,000 in the previous week which had raised hopes that the labor market could be improving.
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If a report is released and largely ignored does it even matter?

This report should be a push for a strong public option if not single payer not the watered down bills that the House and Senate eventually passed just to get something done.

And all the Fox folks could say was how unfortunate that was that the Anthem increases were handing the pro-HCR movement valuable ammunition.

The BCBS of Illinois rates for my employer went up 12% at the start of the year. Because my employer can no longer handle these increases, the whole increase was put on the employees. Net increases for us are 40 - 55% in out of pocket premiums. And that was switching to a $2500 per person deductible plan.

In my career working for small businesses I have been involved with many decisions involving health insurance for our employees. In all those years I have never seen the yearly increase in premiums be less than 10%.

Nice racket, if you can get the government to back your piracy.

Please, Democrats, put this in real terms. The abstraction of percentages just doesn't hit home with the average consumer. But saying: you will pay $112 more per month on insurance does.

Part of the reason the health care debate has gone squirrelly is that the Democrats speak in confusing policy jargon, whereas the Republicans talk like plain folks (even if they're spewing half-truths.)

Democrats need to learn, as Josh Marshall has often said, that people outside the Beltway don't care about statistics, percentages, and policy nuance. What they care about is bottom lines.

And note that a lot of the healthcare insurers are cutting jobs as their enrollment numbers go down. They are getting record profits just through these premium increases, which they can put thru because there is no real competition.

I work for a small technology company in NJ. Due to our small size we're very aware of the effects of health care costs to our employer and (of course) to ourselves. Last week we were notified that Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey will be increasing our premiums by 31%. This is thievery, pure and simple and I suspect it's far more widespread than we know. This will eventually take down the economy and the middle class with it.

Our health care system is not fixable nor tweakable. The rest of our national peers provide universal care for 8% to 11% of GDP. We are at 16% going on 24% (and even higher. Plus as a wonderful bonus, we allow people to go bankrupt, stay trapped in jobs, be locked out of insurance, and even die for lack of health care.) I am a lifelong small businessman, so I have no problem with the profit motive, competition, and a free marketplace. But I ask you, where is the competition going to come from that is will bring our costs in line with the rest of industrialized world and also provide universal coverage. Seriously, answer the question…what’s going to come along and knock us back to something reasonable, like say, 10% of GDP. Can you think of anything? Didn’t think so. Well, here’s my answer… Lucky for us, that wheel has already been invented. Argue with 8% - Great Britain has the lowest health costs with their Nation Health Service. Give me a choice, I’ll go with that 8%. Duh. So give me that choice!!! If you want to pay 16%, go right ahead, but don’t force me to pay 16% because of your unwavering faith in the “marketplace”. Those of you trying to prop-up 16% are thieves – you are stealing money out of my pocket to support your ideology. It comes down to this - the profit motive is inappropriate as the primary motivator in health care, especially in a business environment where nothing less than mega-profits will do. In the real world, businesses avoid competing on price, and work very hard to never let buyers compare apples to apples - and there is no better marketplace for this than the complex world of health care, insurance and hospitalization. Have you tried shopping for a health services lately? I have, and let me tell you, it is not a normal marketplace in any form or fashion. There is seldom an opportunity to ever even choose based on price or quality of goods/services, etc. Throw into this mix the insurance industry, who’s basic modus operandi is slight-of-hand and skim & skam, and you have this wonderful situation we are in right now.

The only way republicans are going to stop fighting HCR will be if their constituents back home get these rate hikes and realize they're going to loose a lot of their disposable income. That means less money for gas, home heating and electricity, entertainment, vacations and so forth. Seems the only way to get them to come to our side is for them to personally experience the problem first hand.

All of the states mentioned in this article, except California and Washington state, have Insurance Commissioners that are political appointments, not elected officials. Georgia's current GOP Governor Perdue has launched a campaign to amend the state Constitution to make the Insurance Commissioner a political appointment. Performance wise, I wonder if the political appointees differ in their approach to dealing with these outrageous hikes by insurance companies when compared to their elected counterparts? You can find out if your state has an appointed or elected Insurance Commissioner here.

If HCR had passed and been signed into law by Obama, the Republicans would be screaming that made premiums go up 40%

So there really are 'Death Panels.' It's just that they meet in corporate board rooms. Where is all the phony right-wing outrage now? Thousands will lose their health insurance and die.

Not sure why Colorado did not make to the list. My premiums from Anthem Blue Cross went up 35% for 2010. Questioning the poor souls who man the phones seemed futile. And since there is no real alternative to Anthem, I did something marginally less futile and called my Senators and Representive, if only to get our state on the list.