HEALTH CARE thoughts: Obama Administration Gets Tough With Insurers
by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt
HEALTH CARE: Obama Administration Gets Tough With Insurers
DHHS Secretary Sebelius has lambasted the private health insurance industry in a letter to the industry’s trade association (I’m not a big friend of health insurance companies, FWIW). From the letter:
“There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases.”
The issue is premium increases and the cause of the premium increases.
PPACA (Obamacare) requires more lives on some policies and more coverage broadly, so no wonder premiums will be going up in the short and near term (some of us predicted this).
There is little likelihood of bending the cost curve for at least five years, as the various and numerous programs in Obamacare phase in and ramp up. And then, who knows.
Understanding that politicians must by nature take care of politics, this seems a little shrill and over the top.
Having spent the summer going through the deep dark details of PPACA, I’m working on a theory or two on how this will play out.
Full letter here: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/09/09/hhs-explicitly-threatens-the-insurance-lobby/
Best part is when Sebelius, with the full force of Government behind her, threatens the 1st Amendment free speech rights and threatens to shut down a private company she doesn’t like. And you wonder why people don’t like Obamacare and want it repealed (and in general the Fed out of their lives??)
Quote Here:
“We will also keep track of insurers with a record of unjustified rate increases: those plans may be excluded from health insurance Exchanges in 2014. Simply stated, we will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections.”
The Feds will track your free speech and retaliate if they don’t like it. Yep, and you guys wonder were the anti-government backlash is coming from? Look no further than Obama’s handpicked staff. (are they that thin-skinned? Why aren’t they running on the great accomplishment of ObamaCare for the mid-terms???)
Oh and when are the $500 BILLION in Medicare savings going to be announced and where the cuts will be from? And how about cutting by 40% the re-imbursement rate for cardiac doctors? Obamacare is going ot be a budget buster…
Islam will change
When “wages” of The KC-45, F-35, next class of aircraft carrier, and a slew of army ideas will be cut to fund all that.
Time to end buying weapons justified by novelists like Evan Pedone,
Actually, PCACA does not require insurers to come up with specific plans to cut costs, and if it did there would be howling about rationing from patients and fee cuts from providers.
The Obama should understand that their own bill is not going to bend the cost curve immediately, and maybe never.
People opposed to Obamacare (for other than it is not one payer) would rather be beholding to the corproations than the government.
I prefer the government particularly if run by the likes of the socialsecurity adminstration.
MG and buffpilot are retired military officer as am I. We have always been a special class beholden to the DoD, a “better part” of the government, not really a warm cacoon, but like it. We are already on something like one payer, it is called tri-care and we just worry that if there is true one payer tri care may go away and we have to be like the rest of the citizens.
Only I rather be like the rest and no be beholding to the corporations and the top oners.
ilsm,
TRICARE is a joke, It lumps us in with the Medicare and Medicaid (i.e the poor). The only reason I keep it is becuase its a cheap way to have catastrophic insurance coverage. I use an HSA for most of my medical – especially to handle bills from doctors and specialists that won’t take any of the Government Inusrance becuase it pays so horribly. None of my pilot friends flying for American have any trouble at all getting into the best docs in town. Becuase their insurance pays the going rate.
I am already like all the rest of the citizens with a marginal health insurance account.
And you keep missing the point – I can’t ‘fire’ teh Feds. I can fire Aetna.
Islam will change
“There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases.”
Doesn’t this just confirm the agenda of ObamaCare. The entire point was to starve the insurance companies, get them out of the way, so this piece of legislation is the first stepping stone, setting up all the agencies needed for the Single Payer System.
Of course, they are going to make alot more money in the beginning, but if you don’t let the insurance companies readjust all their policies, and increase the premiums to keep the buisness profitable, it is only a matter of time before they go out of buisness. This was the strategy noted by Bawney Frwank. The problem is I think the American People have caught on to what the agenda is here, and are going to demand we go the other direction.
True, Buff. But Aetna would and will fire you in a NY minute if you ever try to use the full range of benefits they offered when you signed up without the PPCA. The government won’t fire you as you point out. One case in which govt is not the problem people make it out to be. NancyO
Gee. What if the insurance companies go out of business? Hmm. Well, we could get single payer. I guess. I suppose. Ok. I’ll go away now. NancyO.
I don’t like private health insurers but I am not in favor of using the government as a thug squad to suppress free speech, especially when the health insurers are only doing what makes sense given the new regulatory environment and the near term “reforms.”.
I wonder if this isn’t just worrying about the wrong problem. If the actual cost of providing health care rises, the insurance companies are pretty much forced to pass it on in the form of premium increases, or perhaps in the form of health care rationing. If the actual cost isn’t actually rising, but the insurance companies are just pocketing the money, that ought to be transparent in the public companies’ annual reports. Their profits ought to be stellar. If the actual cost is caused by inefficiencies in delivering care, one ought to be able to ferret that out as well. My guess would be that, until the whole cost structure is understood, any sort of solution is premature. (That sounds like I’m saying we should understand the problem before we solve it, which I think is what I’m in fact saying.)
There is one theory on HC that the insurers are what is causing the increase in health provider prices so it all goes back to them.
There is one theory on HC that the insurers are what is causing the increase in health provider prices so it all goes back to them.
The Attorney General of Michigan is suing Blue Cross AND suing the Michigan insurance regulatory agency for not following proper procedure on rate adjustments.
Since the AG is supposed to represent the insurance regulatory agency this will be interesting litigation. Politics anyone?