Obamacare continues to cause health insurance premiums to skyrocket
Finding out what’s in it: Health insurance companies are now requesting (and getting) rate increases from 23 to 54 percent due to the increased costs imposed by Obamacare.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans — market leaders in many states — are seeking rate increases that average 23 percent in Illinois, 25 percent in North Carolina, 31 percent in Oklahoma, 36 percent in Tennessee and 54 percent in Minnesota, according to documents posted online by the federal government and state insurance commissioners and interviews with insurance executives.
The Oregon insurance commissioner, Laura N. Cali, has just approved 2016 rate increases for companies that cover more than 220,000 people. Moda Health Plan, which has the largest enrollment in the state, received a 25 percent increase, and the second-largest plan, LifeWise, received a 33 percent increase.
At the same time, many insurance companies are merging or leaving the market because of the law makes profitability impossible.
Obviously, we must all then vote for Democrats so they can use their brilliance (demostrated so clearly with Obamacare) to solve this problem by nationalizing healthcare.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Finding out what’s in it: Health insurance companies are now requesting (and getting) rate increases from 23 to 54 percent due to the increased costs imposed by Obamacare.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans — market leaders in many states — are seeking rate increases that average 23 percent in Illinois, 25 percent in North Carolina, 31 percent in Oklahoma, 36 percent in Tennessee and 54 percent in Minnesota, according to documents posted online by the federal government and state insurance commissioners and interviews with insurance executives.
The Oregon insurance commissioner, Laura N. Cali, has just approved 2016 rate increases for companies that cover more than 220,000 people. Moda Health Plan, which has the largest enrollment in the state, received a 25 percent increase, and the second-largest plan, LifeWise, received a 33 percent increase.
At the same time, many insurance companies are merging or leaving the market because of the law makes profitability impossible.
Obviously, we must all then vote for Democrats so they can use their brilliance (demostrated so clearly with Obamacare) to solve this problem by nationalizing healthcare.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
But its not costing the Government as much as a full on total socialized system would.
Granted the people are still paying more than ever and being forced to do it to boot. Sort of like a tax but not a tax.
The only thing keeping this healthcare monstrosity from tanking the economy is relatively low gasoline prices. When it eventually goes back to $4 per gallon nationwide, the USA will see 2001 all over again.
It was cheaper to have my kids on the local gold plan after it became clear COBRA cost twice the premiums. The sign-up process was a bit convoluted and time consuming, but getting out of coverage wasn’t near as hard as getting in.
Bottom line, if you can float COBRA for two months you can request a special enrollment period, do all the sign-up on the web site, then have a “navigator” go through all the steps with you and bang, you submit at the end. See it as emergency insurance you can still afford before going full-blown socialized medicine when you can’t.
“But its not costing the Government as much as a full on total socialized system would.”
Maybe not the government but we spend more on healthcare than any other nation.
“Sort of like a tax but not a tax.”
It is only constitutional as a tax and that is how it got through SCOTUS despite the administration arguing that it wasn’t a tax.
Don’t need to go through an Obamacare exchange to do that unless you want subsidies.
I live in Washington state so this may be different in other states. We have an insurance commission that oversees the insurance industry. Rates have climbed steadily since I first got insurance years ago but no rate increases happen without government approval.
Politicians will blame greedy insurance companies but just remember that no rate hikes take place without government approval.
Same goes for utilities here.
Unrelated but related:
Like him or loath him, because of things like this posted below that he says the PEOPLE of America are hearing him and they agree with him. Both Democrat and Republican leadership, professional politicians all, trade individual Americans freedoms and our country’s sovereignty away for their own short term gains. And that is not acceptable and like it or not this is the one man that is calling them out for what they are, ball-less political tools.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/06/trump-on-criminal-illegals-both-sides-need-to-grow-up-and-put-americas-interests-first/
At the least he will drive a very useful and politically uncomfortable conversation leading up to the 2016 election, and at the max? Who knows, just let him serve a purpose.
If you have kids those are typically the only ones you can cover through the exchange. the top earner level is so low, working adults have to find a bronze plan elsewhere. Assurant here in Wisconsin was great, but they are closing shop all together (>1000 ppl out of work) so expect there to be only two insurers.
For the record, I love Blue Cross Blue Shield, but I doubt they are going to be around for any length of time any more. The sickening feeling that the HMO model for health insurance will be the last man standing should give us all pause.
exchanges have been tried before, and eventually collapse because they can’t find enough healthy people to help spread the costs out.
Rates used to climb because you were getting older, regulations were making healthcare cost more, and various smaller reasons, such as an increased number of people skipping out on their emergency room debts and filing bankruptcy over expensive life-saving procedures.
Now the rates are climbing because of overregulation, requirements that almost all doctor-visits and procedures be covered rather than just catastrophic coverage (which I used to have, because it was less expensive and I didn’t sweat the small stuff), and even less participation by the relatively healthy as they increasingly realize that it is less expensive to go self-insured than to pay the skyrocketing premiums.
The irony is that the ACA was written because about 400,000 households were selling their houses or filing for bankruptcy due to expensive life-saving procedures, but now these households are still not able to afford the even more unaffordable premiums, meaning that they continue to lose their houses and credit ratings. The law failed to do good, which is one reason that the SCOTUS thought that they should “fix” it.
Meanwhile, the rest of society, including our work ethic, our incomes, our savings, our liberties and constitutional rights, the American Dream, and a pack of other American cultures and traditions are being eroded or destroyed by this heinous law.
The incompetent (or worse) Congress has created a Frankenstein’s Monster of a law (Obama’s Monster), and now it is out of control, destroying our livelihoods, liberties, and happiness.
“The incompetent (or worse) Congress has created a Frankenstein’s Monster of a law (Obama’s Monster), and now it is out of control, destroying our livelihoods, liberties, and happiness.”
The Chief Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States Of America disagrees vehemently with you.
How can that be? How can what should be a reasonable and highly educated Chief Justice disagree with what is plain to see?
“Maybe not the government but we spend more on healthcare than any other nation.”
Before Obama care when people said that they said it insultingly, forgetting one thing.
We got more out of our health care system than any other nation. Because we paid for it and demanded it.
Granted our prices did go up every year for various reasons, not the least of which were legal problems, unions, unregulated education systems, and not the least of which were patients ever increasing expectations of the medical system.
Granted ours could have done with a huge amount of fixing to make things better for the masses but in the end the ACA addressed none of the real problems and instead is just hoping that if everyone pays the problems will go away.