Health Insurers Raise Some Rates by Double Digits
Source: NYT
Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administrations health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.
Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.
In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014.
In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/business/despite-new-health-law-some-see-sharp-rise-in-premiums.html?pagewanted=all
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)Not about lowering costs
michaz
(1,352 posts)That seems to be the general trend: create a sickened population utterly dependent upon their continual participation in the machine.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)It doesn't do much good to have policies available that are unaffordable to many people.
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)They want mandates and subsidies instead. Either you get crushed with the burden or we put it on the government charge card. The system doesn't suck on accident
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Stealing away any asset that anyone in the middle classes might achieve for the purpose and profit margins of the One Percent.
The ACA is working out great for some people. For instance, Rahm Emanuel, its chief architect, along with the Wellstone woman executive who helped him draft the wording of the ACA legislation, he is now mayor of Chicago. And she has gone on to a very "Cush" job herself.
Our nation's Corporate Banking And Insurance Executives Uber Alles!
midnight
(26,624 posts)But the name "affordable health care" needs to be just that.... Doubling policies is counterintuitive to the policy name..
bubbayugga
(222 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)Your insurance company cant raise rates by 10% or more without first explaining its reasons to your state or federal Rate Review program. All explanations will be posted on HealthCare.gov and your Rate Review program will give you a chance to comment on them.
This "handy tool" doesn't work for me in either Firefox or IE. (Almost like they don't want us to know rate increases by state!)
Find rate increase information for your state with HealthCare.gov's Rate Review tool.
http://companyprofiles.healthcare.gov/
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)review, but the increase stood. And still stands.
According to what I read, under PPACA the companies do not have to "ask" first, they will implement the increase, and if it is 10% or over it is subject to review. Eventually, if they make too much they will have to return some, but that won't help the folks who no longer have their money, or lose their insurance.
valerief
(53,235 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)quadrature
(2,049 posts)I give up.
so is it,
for any age,
$100
$1000
a month or more.
please be as specific as you can be.
Festivito
(13,452 posts)Just like their competition. Plus, do they keep the interest on the money they collect until forced to return it?
pediatricmedic
(397 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)there is no upper limit.
In fact, with the restriction on how much profit can be made the only way they can increase revenue, which is their goal, is to increase prices.
Brigid
(17,621 posts)We may get single payer after all.
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Solly Mack
(90,771 posts)democrattotheend
(11,605 posts)One provision of the ACA that I really hate is the provision that insurance companies can't charge more than 3 times the premium for an older person that they charge for a younger person. That has the effect of driving up rates significantly for younger individuals, and it is really unfair since younger people not only are healthier but on average have lower incomes than people in their late middle ages. Why should a young person working the entry level job at a company that does not provide insurance have to subsidize the premiums his boss pays?