The $4,284 monthly health insurance premium

[RedEarth]

The $4,284 monthly premium

"Paul reached his breaking point when he got his latest renewal notice in August; the monthly premium was now $4,284."

.....

And anyone with a pre-existing condition who has an individual health insurance policy must pay whatever rate the company charges. Although it is illegal in all states to kick people out of insurance plans if they become ill, in most states insurance companies are allowed to increase rates for individual health insurance policies as much as they need to cover the plan's medical costs, plus a reasonable profit.

Companies also control their risk by using a maneuver known as closing a block or book of business. They stop accepting new customers in a plan, which kicks off a process known as a "death spiral."

Even if everyone in an insurance plan starts out relatively healthy, as time goes on, people get sick, and the cost to insure them rises. Once the pool is closed, costs for the remaining members rise inexorably. Healthier members find cheaper plans, but sicker ones are effectively forced out because they can't afford coverage.

Once that process gets going, premiums on individual health insurance policies can rise at a breathtaking rate. Jesse Paul, 59, an Indianapolis lawyer, paid $25.50 a month for his individual, $100- deductible Prudential major medical policy when he took it out in 1980. Premiums rose steadily for years but at a pace that Paul deemed "rational in terms of medical costs." In 2003 the premium shot up from about $1,200 to about $1,900 a month at renewal.

When Paul complained to the state insurance department, he learned that the policy had been closed to new entrants for years, that he was one of only 400 to 600 customers left in the state, and that the premium increase was permissible under Indiana law. Paul reached his breaking point when he got his latest renewal notice in August; the monthly premium was now $4,284. He quickly found out he was uninsurable on the private market because he took medications for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and allergies.

http://www.consumerreports.org/health/insurance/health-care-on-your-own-1-08/the-4284-monthly-premium/health-care-on-your-own-monthly-premium.htm

[LynnTheDem]

1. And America is the greatest...

how?

[stray cat]

2. Lower than McCain's premiums except he has government health care (ie taxpayer, or socialized)

[stray cat]

3. But McCain wants to give him a 4000 dollar tax break per year to pay for it

McCain is either out of touch, crooked or both.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. The only solution is single-payer universal insurance or for the government to control

(cap) medical costs. There is no justification for the massive increases in drugs... some that have been on the market for decades. Take human insulin, which I first started buying in May 2004 at a cost of $15 a vial. It's now somewhere between $42 and $48. Triple the price in just 4 years. This is the same insulin that was developed and researched decades ago so there are no 'research and development' costs. Why does it cost about $85 just to see a doctor for a few minutes when in the 1970's it was about $10?

[Warpy]

5. The wonderful insurance company death spiral!

When someone buys an individual policy, he's put into a large pool. As people in the pool age, the cost of the policy goes up. Healthier people find they can buy new, cheaper policies elsewhere and drop out, leaving the sicker people in the original pool. Eventually the premiums for those who are left go well beyond anyone's ability to pay. The sickest people in the pool, the ones who have actually needed to use the insurance, are left either paying ridiculously high premiums or dropping out completely, meaning they are uninsurable at any price.

I became uninsurable 20 years ago.

The only way to keep health insurance is to avoid getting health care.

This is why we need to get the insurance companies out of the business forever.

[DailyGrind51]

6. Your "free market" health care system at work!

[norepubsin08]

7. Once again...

I'll say it at the risk of being accused of being a Communist...UNIVERSAL HEALTH INSURANCE....A SINGLE PAYER HEALTH PLAN....

I was born in Germany at 3 weeks old I came down with a case of encephalitis I was in critical care for about 4 weeks and in the hospital for six months. My parents bill in today's money? 192.00 and hospital basically apologized for that. If we wish to be a great nation...we need to a least provide the basics!!!!

[Gormy Cuss]

12. Universal health care, not insurance.

The insurance companies will add needless cost to universal care because they are for-profit entities. Best to cut them out of primary health care coverage and let them sell other lines.

[norepubsin08]

23. Oops I meant Universal Health Care not insurance

it was early in the morning and my brain hadn't kicked in all the way...mea culpa!

[snappyturtle]

8. Disgusting. eom

[mainegreen]

9. If they close a plan to new members, they should be forced to allow members to move to other plans..

offered by the carrier without penalty. Send everyone notices stating that the plan has closed enrollment, with state mandated verbiage that over time the premium of this plan is guaranteed to rise at an increasing rate.

That would certainly be an easy partial fix for states to implement.

[SoCalDem]

10. And if he lived in Canada, he would be fine..

Maybe that Boston Tea Party thing was not such a good idea after all :eyes:

[MadHound]

11. One more reason that we need true, single payer, non-profit universal health care

Not the plans cooked up by Obama and Clinton, but something more akin to what Canada and Europe have, like Kucinich proposed. Anything less simply means that the insurance companies are going to continue to fleece the public.

[OneBlueSky]

13. "He is now insured by the Indiana high- risk pool for a premium of $650 a month." . . .

for most Americans, $650 a month ($7800/year) is still far too much to pay for health insurance . . . most simply can't afford it . . . if you're making $25,000/year -- or, say, $18,000 after taxes -- that $7800 represents over 43% of your take-home pay . . .

[HowHasItComeToThis]

14. INSURANCE THIEVES HAVE BEEN CRIMINAL FOR A CENTURY

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. The insurance companies only want healthy people.

Everyone else becomes my problem as a taxpayer.

I have an idea! How about I insure healthy people as well as sick ones?

Medicare for all.

[Hydra]

15. Oh, so when they actually have to deliver on the product they are selling, they get to charge more?

Tell me how this is supposed to make sense and how it is some sort of efficient system again...

No more for-profit Health care. Pay the people providing the service fairly and cut out al of the middlemen.

[backscatter712]

16. Assuming insurance was allowed to stay in business:

Force them to keep all their customers in one big pool, make it illegal to discriminate based on preexisting conditions or any medical condition at all - everyone pays the same, and nobody who can pay the premiums is excluded. Doesn't matter if the customer is a healthy 23 year old who was insured for two decades, or a brand new customer who needs a heart transplant - in that case, the insurer eats the fucking bill.

[lumberjack_jeff]

19. Yes. They're denying coverage to people who with average health.

And placing everyone in ever-smaller risk pools which they can then close if the micro-pool becomes unprofitable.

[progressoid]

17. "high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and allergies"

Shit, that's like most of America! :crazy:

[TexasObserver]

20. that's why private health insurance fails consumers

Health insurance is only affordable to the healthy, and once you're no longer healthy, you're going to find it harder and harder to pay your premiums and to maintain your coverage.

Insurance companies want customers who don't have significant claims. As soon as you become a monetary net loss for the insurance company, they're looking for ways to cut you loose.

[ThatsMyBarack]

21. What do the Insurance-Company Nazis DO with that extra cash?!

I'd have to do without it if my health-insurance companies jacked prices that high JUST FOR ME.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

24. In Minnesota, they're allegedly non-profit, but their executives aren't starving

and their buildings are lavish.

[Vinca]

22. And I bet Paul will never be able to find health insurance again.

Insurance companies do not insure people they deem to have any kind of medical problem. The sick are on their own.