# Health Insurance Companies asking for rate hikes??



## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

Five points or things to think about:

1. I am going to say if you want to find the real news on things on MSN... Look at the Money section. This is where some reporting is good. But a reason why they put the articles there is because people don't scroll that far down. Tricky media.

2.... Now most insurance companies will ask for a hike of X% and the state and them will agree to a Y% increase. Yet it is still an increase and is justified by data. Insurance companies cant just pull numbers out of the air. So to say it is greed is false. It is showing operation costs, reserve costs (which is required by law a company have built up reserves), claims paid, etc.

3... Ask yourself... Now if rates increase will subsidies have to increase to make plans "affordable"? What will that do to taxes? Where will this increase get its funding?

4... Now states are supposed to be coming off the help from the Fed and start to pay for the subsidies themselves.....what is going to happen with state taxes or since many state funding for the exchanges are having a hard time staying afloat (MN) what is going to happen??

5..... I knew this would happen.

enjoy the read.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/insuranc ... id=DELLDHP



> Health Insurers Seek Hefty Rate Boosts
> 
> Major insurers in some states are proposing hefty rate boosts for plans sold under the federal health law, setting the stage for an intense debate this summer over the law's impact.
> 
> ...


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## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

Had this thought while I was eating lunch.... and to show the impact on this.

Some stats: 
- 10+ million people on the exchanges (number is debatable). 
- Now that is 1/3 of the people who they said were "uninsured" when they pushed this bill down our throats. Now that number can be skewed because some of that number is people who lost insurance because they were dropped because of the Legislation or they are people who had insurance and shopped around and found it cheaper. But we will use the 10 million number for my example.
- Now your age, health, pre existing, etc. will bracket your plan costs per month here is an average..... $250 for a 25 year old and $680 for a 55 year old. (averages across the nation)
http://ctmirror.org/2014/08/25/obamacar ... -for-2015/

Now this is just a rough example of what is in store:

Now you take 10 million people in the exchanges and if across the board you see an increase of 10%. Some states or companies are asking for 50% others are asking for 2% increases. So lets just average it at 10%. Which is about $25 per month increase for the young 25 year old. Now that is $300 increase in premium for the year. That isn't that much or drastic on the surface. But lets dig into that.... $300 a year multiply that by 10 million people. That is $3,000,000,000. Yes $3 BILLION.... That will be needed for these people to keep the prices where they are now. What is all of that needs to be subsidized?? That is 3 BILLION that will needed to be paid for thru taxes or rate increase to other insurers. Saying that the 10% increase won't impact you in some way is looking at this with blinders on. * Now this is for the lowest costing demographic. It could be much higher!!!!*


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

My insurance through the company I work for is expected to jump around 400% by next year. Awesome. I am working two jobs, trying to save up to buy a house (under $100,000), paying off student loans ( I worked the whole time I was in college), I am on a very strict budget to be able to afford a house, and now I just found out that my health insurance is going to jump that much, it kind of ****** me off. If people really thought that Obama Care was going to lower insurance rates, those people seriously all need a CAT scan.


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## Habitat Hugger (Jan 19, 2005)

With or without OBAMACARE, rates for all health insurance companies would and WILL continue to rise! I've said a million times that Obamacare solves nothing to control the rising costs of medicine, and only shifts the way we pay the costs. 
Unfortunately, rate hikes are pretty convenient for the insurance companies and OBAMA haters to point fingers at Obamacare and deflect criticism away from the real problems. Medicine is EXPENSIVE and every new gadget costs money, and lots of it. And it has always risen at about 20% per year more or less. It actually rose a slight bit LESS the last year or so, though not because, but in spite of Obamacare. look at the overall cost, not what we pay for it. You can't turn in The TV without being subjected to constant ads for new drugs, gimmicky procedures, Cancer docs, etc. who pays??? We do. You don't see this in other countries! 
Time we looked at other developed countries and see how they keep the lid on costs, why their citizens are healthier, happier, and life expectancies are longer. Another example- We are now so,far down on The List Of perinatañ survival Numbers That I've lots Count. We were # 24 mor so when I Retired, now I reas somethong about being in The thirties. ( I real it on The internet so it must be true! LOL). Yet se still proudly tell That our health care Syntek is best int he world!?! In some wazs it is, But dispar in otra wazs.
In any case, with or with out Obamacare insurance premiums are going up. There are only a billón causes for it, few having to do,with polítics!


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## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

> With or without OBAMACARE, rates for all health insurance companies would and WILL continue to rise! I've said a million times that Obamacare solves nothing to control the rising costs of medicine, and only shifts the way we pay the costs.


That is the exact same thing I have been saying since day one when this bill was being debated!!



> Unfortunately, rate hikes are pretty convenient for the insurance companies and OBAMA haters to point fingers at Obamacare and deflect criticism away from the real problems.


Yes and NO. The reason why people point to it is because that is what the country was sold by the politicians that pushed it through!! It would lower the costs of insurance premiums. Go back and read old articles when the bill was being introduced and debated. The Democrat's said it would lower health insurance premiums.... BS.

Now on the yes part.... Wages keep going up, costs of heating buildings is going up, costs of infrastructure in the hospitals are going up, studies done by hospital labs, new technology, costs of everything are going up each year.... with that so does insurance.

I was talking with someone who worked at a hospital and he was complaining why his insurance (through the hospital) was going up. But in the same breathe he was talking about how he got a 10% wage increase. HMMMMM... how do you think his wages get paid... by peoples health insurance!!!!



> You can't turn in The TV without being subjected to constant ads for new drugs, gimmicky procedures, Cancer docs, etc. who pays???


Now with this.... you forgot about every Malpractice law suit you see as well for a drug, procedure, device.

But right now I don't blame the drug companies. Because it takes something like 10 years to make back the money on what it costs to develop a single drug. I think the average cost is like $10,000,000,000. For a drug to get to market. YES $10 BILLION. So they need to get that money back somehow. Otherwise you would never have any private company trying to find new cures for anything if it wasn't profitable. That is sad but true. We would be in the dark ages with out letting the private sector trying for medical advances.

Also with the TV ad's and what not.... Doctors are in the pockets of many Pharmacutical companies. So they are more apt to prescribe a pill than push someone to make life changes such as diet and exercise. Plus our lazy *** nation (I am lazy myself) would rather take a pill that exert effort into something.

But you can point the finger to the ACA because it was pushed down our throats with lies and now the chickens are coming in to roost and people are not liking what they were told. Lets make the small list:

1.You can keep your doctor no matter in you get new coverage in the ACA.
- Some places are not accepting all insurance plans in the ACA.
2.If you have insurance now nothing will change with your plan and you can keep it.
- Many people lost their plans because they didn't meet all the requirements of the ACA.
3. This bill will lower the cost of insurance for everyone because there will be no more uninsured.
- Sure looks that way with this article plus the yearly mark ups.
4. It will be self funded and the State run exchanges will take over.
- doesn't look so good so far in MN
http://www.postbulletin.com/news/state/ ... 24982.html

I am sure there are more lies but these are the major ones. Plus we wont even go with the problems the exchanges had with start up, not having the number of enrollies, still not having that many signed up who were actually uninsured but just people shopping (which is good that people shopped around).... because they are at like 10 million enrolled......but wasn't there over 30 million uninsured???? So they are less than 30% in two years of signing up. REMEMBER IN THAT 10 MILLION ARE PEOPLE WHO WERE INSURED BEFORE!!! But the government and this administration won't tell you the real numbers on that. They are just beating their chests that they have 10 million signed up. :bop:

Again I will restate that I am against the majority of what the ACA was about. But it did have some very good things as well. Like the checks and balance with the insurance companies that they can only make X amount of profit.


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

I understand that insurance like everything will annually go up, but these drastic hikes are completely out of line. Obama and the Democrats said nothing would change. Guess what everything has changed.


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

Has anyone ever went to the Obama Care website and went through everything to see how much Obama Care will save you? I did it while I was in college and after I graduated. Both times roughly 1/3-1/2 of my paycheck would have went to Obama Care. Yeah, that seems SOOOOOOO affordable to me. :roll:


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## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

BL...

Here is the thing with ACA or Obamacare. It is costing roughly the same as people who are not on it. BUT if you get the subsidies it is cheaper. So if the subsidies go away..... so will the "cheap" insurance.

that is the kicker in this whole deal. Now some people did get lower insurance with out the subsidies. But most needed the government kick back!!!


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## Habitat Hugger (Jan 19, 2005)

I haven't followed the medical ins stuff lately! Too complicated for an old guy like me. Things are so muddled, with or without Obamacarethat I don't have any magic suggestions or answers. I was reading a Robin Cook novel a week ago and in the final chapter, after the heroes vanquished the bad guys, he summed up they present system we have here. Wish I still had the book to quote him but having lived and worked in the system for 45 years he said it very eloquently. Basically the system here has devolved rapidly into a highly competitive economic machine, patients are " market share" new drugs and procedures are largely developed for profit by private corporations and new discoveries and developments are highly patented unlike in the past where research was primarily done by Universities, peer reviewed properly and then released as public domain.....etc. Little emphasis on prevention and basic health and tremendous waste and duplication of services, the whole thing driven as a cutthroat economic thing rather than more altruistic like in other countries who incidentally have much BETTER and CHEAPER results and live longer than us here, too.
Not that I'm for it, so before someone jumps on me for saying it, sooner or later I predict some kind of simple single payer system, kind of like a national all age Medicare, which works pretty well, but not perfectly, in every other civilized industrialized Cpuntry in the world. IMHO this will be inevitable. Health care will be as basic as road building, fire engines, military protection, education, etc. If and when such a thing comes about there will be a tremendous upheaval of all the stuff we are overly serviced about. Lots of articles in the lay press such as " what it means when your doctor says no" etc. over medicating, over servicing, etc. 
Huge growing pains for years and years. It's taken about 50 years as a work in progress up in Canada and though there are still problems and they keep fine tuning, problems pale in comparison with down here. Still98% of Canadians would fight any discontinuing of their medical system, despite what we hear on Rush Limbaugh! In fact, for the past two years there has been an increasing net GAIN of doctors in Canada migrating back - some Canadian trained and surprising numbe of American home grown docs. Lots of reasons for this.


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## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

HH...

You are correct and so was that author about how our medical system is "Capitalist". Our government is an ally and part of the problem in this. Reason being is what they require before a drug comes on the market. Then they reward the company with 10 year patents. So if another company comes up with a drug for High Blood pressure first... then its rival gets it a year later. They reward the first one with a something like a 10 year patent and the other company is S.O.L. and have to wait to bring that drug to market. Unless they start back over with the research and tweak the formula. Also the government requires something like 10 years of research before a drug can come to market. That is why it costs billions of dollars to bring a drug to market.

Now some of these other countries are using generics right out of the bat. Most generics piggy back on the initial drug companies research. So not the 10 year process.

The Phara industry is crazy. But that is why you see the ads, reps wining and dining doctors, the kick backs, etc. To make up for the 10 year thing and getting doc's to prescribe. That is also hand and foot why the prices are so high. Now the government has reeling in some of the stuff that was happening back in the 2000's. But if you talk to anyone in the industry and ask them some stories.... you will be blown away.

Now the sad thing is to make things "cheap" you need to revamp the system. Also like you said... it will take 50 years or better. With doctors telling patients... NO to just prescribing pills to help you deal with the sympthom but does nothing to cure the problem!

Because the high blood pressure medicine people are on lowers your blood pressure.....but the reason for high blood pressure could be stress, physical health (obesity), poor diet, etc. But just prescribe a pill to take care of anything.

I think a single payer system won't work in the USA. The reason why is because that will make other area's of industry and tax revenue decline. It will take away the money the government is taking in from big Pharma.... the income taxes employees, business taxes that the corporations are paying, the money it bring in with research and what not. You see a single payer system wouldn't just effect the insurance companies....but also anything that has to do with the medical industry.... pills, devices, lab testing facilities, etc. (many hospitals out source lab testing and that is another big market and why premiums are higher as well......just like pharma.)


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