Health Insurers Raise Some Rates by Double Digits

[alp227]

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 administration’s 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]

1. The law was about getting more people into policies

Not about lowering costs

[michaz]

2. But it shouldn't be about breaking people either. n/t

[NoOneMan]

3. Why not?

That seems to be the general trend: create a sickened population utterly dependent upon their continual participation in the machine.

[amandabeech]

5. Reasonable rates help get people into policies.

It doesn't do much good to have policies available that are unaffordable to many people.

[NoOneMan]

6. Tell that to the people behind the curtain

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]

11. You are obviosuly forgetting the entire purpose of today's modern government -

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]

7. Many families were going to lose the coverage for their adult children, and that was a great help.

But the name "affordable health care" needs to be just that.... Doubling policies is counterintuitive to the policy name..

[bubbayugga]

16. Exactly. The patient protection and affordable care act wasn't supposed to make care affordable

[valerief]

4. Rate reviews if over 10% increase

http://www.healthcare.gov/law/features/costs/rate-review/index.html

Your insurance company can’t 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]

13. Blue Cross in California faced the same rule, raised their rates by 30+ percent. It's under

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]

18. Thieves, all of them. :(

[jtuck004]

19. And we, all of us, are enabling them because we won't stand up together and stop it. n/t

[quadrature]

8. OK, so how much is it?

I give up.

so is it,
for any age,

$100
$1000
a month or more.

please be as specific as you can be.

[Festivito]

9. BCBS used to work on 8%. Now they can get 20%.

Just like their competition. Plus, do they keep the interest on the money they collect until forced to return it?

[pediatricmedic]

10. Sounds like they are trying to get the increases before the ACA takes full effect

[jtuck004]

12. ACA doesn't limit increases. If they ask for 10% or ever they must seek review, but

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]

14. If the insurance companies keep pushing their luck,

We may get single payer after all.

[RufusTFirefly]

15. Whatta shock!

For anyone who is truly surprised by this, perhaps I can interest you in some oceanfront property in Des Moines...


If it weren't verboten, I'd suggest that we were scammed and sold out.

[L0oniX]

17. Insurance corporations to Obama: Muhahahahahah

[Solly Mack]

20. K&R

[democrattotheend]

21. Probably even more than that for young individuals

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?