Blue Shield of California seeks health insurance rate hikes of as much as 59%!

[Better Believe It]

Blue Shield of California seeks rate hikes of as much as 59% for individuals
By Duke Helfand, Los Angeles Times
January 5, 2011

Another big California health insurer has stunned individual policyholders with huge rate increases — this time it's Blue Shield of California seeking cumulative hikes of as much as 59% for tens of thousands of customers March 1.

Blue Shield's action comes less than a year after Anthem Blue Cross tried and failed to raise rates as much as 39% for about 700,000 California customers.

San Francisco-based Blue Shield said the increases were the result of fast-rising healthcare costs and other expenses resulting from new healthcare laws.

In all, Blue Shield said, 193,000 policyholders would see increases averaging 30% to 35%, the result of three separate rate hikes since October.

Anthem's attempt to raise rates by up to 39% led to national outrage and helped President Obama marshal support for his healthcare overhaul. The insurer was ultimately forced to back down, accepting maximum rate hikes of 20%.

Read the full article at:

http://www.latimes.com/health/healthcare/la-fi-insure-rates-20110106,0,6975599.story

So Anthem was "only" allowed to increase insurance rates by 20%! That's all. Another great victory .... for the insurance industry. With that win, Blue Shield might only be allowed to increase their insurance rates by 30%! BBI

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. I wish that these articles used "an average" instead of "as much as".

The healthcare bill does a bunch of cost shifting, and this shifting is attributable to much of the increases.

How much to rates go up in total for those 700,000 customers?

[Better Believe It]

3. That information is included in the article.

"In all, Blue Shield said, 193,000 policyholders would see increases averaging 30% to 35%, the result of three separate rate hikes since October.

Nearly 1 in 4 of the affected customers will see cumulative increases of more than 50% over five months."

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. There are two ways to interpret this

Increases are limited to 25% of policyholders. 75% will see no increases.

Or, all policyholders rates are subject to change. The worst-hit 25% will see increases averaging 32.5%.

Either way, it'd be nice to see what the average increase for all policy holders is.

[Better Believe It]

6. So if "only" 25% of policyholders, 190,000 people, will get increases 32.5% is good????

Break out the champagne and let's party!

Whooppeeee!

So would having "only" 100,000 people getting premium increases averaging "only" 50% be even better?

Another giant leap forward in the battle against the health insurance industry .... not.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. No. But you knew that.

Maybe an even more sensational headline would have been "Ten customers, or .0001% of policyholders, will see increases averaging 59%".

Unless they explain why 25% is relevant, you can't draw any conclusions from the article, only inchoate outrage.

"Other expenses related to the new healthcare laws" is, in part, the new rule that gender is no longer a ratings criteria. It was fully expected that the insurance rates for men would rise because of this.

On Oct. 1, he said, Blue Shield imposed increases averaging 18% and as high as 29%. Those hikes had been delayed for three months while state regulators examined Blue Shield's filing, costing the company tens of millions of dollars.

Epstein said Blue Shield raised rates again Jan. 1 to pay for changes under the national healthcare overhaul and a new state law that bars insurers from charging women more than men. (Some policyholders will pay less under the state gender law, while others will pay more.)

It would have been nice to know the figures behind the parenthetical phrase above.

[Better Believe It]

9. Are you defending or trying to justify insurance industry rate increases?

It sure seems that way to me.

[lumberjack_jeff]

11. 20% Rate increases on men were fully expected because of HCR.

Without more information, no one can justify or defend the article. But that's the point, the article isn't about informing.

[Better Believe It]

12. Where does the article indicate that 20% insurance rate hikes only apply to men?

[lumberjack_jeff]

14. Did you not already know this?

HCR, in isolation, necessitates approximately a 20% rate increase for men.

Here's my pet peeve. Post after post of articles pointing out how insurance rates are going up. "Increases as much as X percent". They always cite the example of a self-employed man in the individual market, who is shocked that his insurance is taking a huge jump. Beyond this, they NEVER say who are taking the biggest hit or why.

Almost invariably, the posters don't realize (or acknowledge) that it's men in the individual market getting the shaft, and have apparently forgotten the reason that it's happening. Prior to HCR, men paid less because women have 34% higher lifetime medical costs due to their longer lives. Gender, more so than ANY behavioral criteria, account for the biggest differences between individuals costs. Male, chainsmoking alcoholic daredevils have lower lifetime medical costs than women.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361028/

Insurance companies are screwing us, but articles that obfuscate some of the reasons don't help.

If you're a woman, don't worry about 59%. They're not talking about you.

[Better Believe It]

15. So the health insurance industry law mandates 20% higher health insurance premiums for men.

Sure it does.

Do you have a credible link for that claim?

[lumberjack_jeff]

21. Math isn't that hard.

Women have a lifetime cost 34% higher than men. I provided a link for that.

HCR requires that gender is no longer a rating criteria. There are plenty of links for that.

Surely you've read the headlines that HCR will save women who used to pay up to 48% more than a comparable man.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/health/30women.html
from Rep Jim Himes

Those costs don't just go away.

So the higher costs of women's healthcare will be spread to men, right? Are we agreed? Strictly speaking, if equal numbers of men were insured, men would expect their costs to rise 17%. Since far more men were uninsured (and thus there's a smaller pool on which to spread women's heathcare costs) the actual rise will be closer to 20%.

The fact that there aren't any "credible links" to explain this says a great deal about US social norms and lazy reporting.

[dflprincess]

18. Not everywhere

some states, Minnesota is one of them, has not allowed gender to be a factor in determing rates for years.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. Do they have the stats to back it up? Ones that will stand up to independent scrutiny?

In other words is it valid.

[The Straight Story]

8. They don't want 59%, maybe 30, so they will ask for 59 and sigh when they get 30

Then laugh at us all for getting what they wanted all along.

[Better Believe It]

13. That's the scam all right. You nailed it!

[Catherina]

17. And others will laud the Administration for winning another *chess* game n/t

[WinkyDink]

10. Tell me again what is good about the new health-care system?

[dflprincess]

19. There is no new system

they just reenforced the old one by making it mandatory.

[AlabamaLibrul]

16. But the Republican health care plan (signed by the President) was supposed to avoid all this!

[The Gunslinger]

20. There you go..........

You see if everyone is forced to buy insurance from the corporations, the rates will go down............