Impact of Health Care Changes

[Lewkowski]

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch...d-of-new-rules

**

Health plans in at least four states have announced they're dropping children's coverage just days ahead of new rules created by the healthcare reform law, according to the liberal grassroots group Health Care for America Now (HCAN).

The new healthcare law forbids insurers from turning down children with pre-existing conditions starting Thursday, one of several reforms Democrats are eager to highlight this week as they try to build support for the law ahead of the mid-term elections. But news of insurers dropping their plans as a result of the new law has thrown a damper on that strategy and prompted fierce push-back from the administration's allies at HCAN.

The announcement could lead to higher costs for some parents who are buying separate coverage for themselves and their children at lower cost than the family coverage that's available to them.

"We’re just days away from a new era when insurance companies must stop denying coverage to kids just because they are sick, and now some of the biggest changed their minds and decided to refuse to sell child-only coverage," HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome said in a statement. "The latest announcement by the insurance companies that they won't cover kids is immoral, and to blame their appalling behavior on the new law is patently dishonest.

"Instead, they should reverse their actions immediately and simply follow the law. If the insurance companies can casually turn their backs on sick children now, who will they abandon next? This offensive behavior by the insurance companies is yet another reminder of why the new law is so important and why the Republicans’ call for repeal is so misguided."

Health plans and state insurance commissioners in July raised concerns that the new rules could lead some insurers to stop children-only coverage because families could wait until their children get sick to buy coverage.

Days later, the Obama administration issued regulations clarifying that insurers would still be able to establish enrollment periods in accordance with state law.

"To address concerns over adverse selection, issuers in the individual market may restrict enrollment of children under 19, whether in family or individual coverage, to specific open enrollment periods if allowed under state law," the Department of Health and Human Services clarified.

The issue had largely dropped out of sight since then, but insurers including WellPoint and CoventryOne have announced in recent days that they're dropping children's coverage in California, Colorado, Ohio and Missouri, according to HCAN.

**

Of course people will blame the evil health insurance companies and not the real people who are to blame. Congratulations Democrats, I hope your happy.

[Ziggy Stardust]

If you had said "congratulations Congress", you'd have a point.

Whenever the opposite side thinks "Death Panels!" is a reasonable objection and acts accordingly, you can blame both sides for the inane way the whole Health Care Legislation was conducted. And of course they can do this because of people like you who will never lay blame on their own side. Also known as Partisan Hacks.

[Nessus]

If you had said "congratulations Congress", you'd have a point.

Whenever the opposite side thinks "Death Panels!" is a reasonable objection and acts accordingly, you can blame both sides for the inane way the whole Health Care Legislation was conducted. And of course they can do this because of people like you who will never lay blame on their own side. Also known as Partisan Hacks.

You know what the funniest thing about this whole health care shebang is? It helped to create the fucking Tea Party Insurance companies doled out massive amounts of support for the so-called "grass roots" organization to create as much furor and confusion, so as to bog down the health care reform. Now that that was fucked up beyond all reasonable belief, the Tea Party's a beast without a leash, making the GOP even more bug-fuck nuts than it ever was, and health care in the US will continue to suck until Hell freezes over. Yay for some, tiny American flags for others!

[GGT]

Of course people will blame the evil health insurance companies and not the real people who are to blame. Congratulations Democrats, I hope your happy.

YOU'RE.

Of course the insurance companies will still try to claim they care about people, and they're all about providing access and affordability to HEALTH CARE.

[Dreadnaught]

Caring about people don't mean running your business into the ground.

Why the drafters of this law refused to acknowledge the power of incentives is beyond me. You can't incentivize companies to do good things when they run their business. But you can't get them to produce pink cuddly elephants that poop penicillin.

[Nessus]

But you can't get them to produce pink cuddly elephants that poop penicillin.

Aw!

[GGT]

Then insurers should just be honest and admit they're business men making money by denying claims, after getting billions in profit from our premiums. Pretty simple.

[Illusions]

Of course people will blame the evil health insurance companies and not the real people who are to blame. Congratulations Democrats, I hope your happy.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and potentially start a worthwhile debate by saying that the real blame here can be laid upon the ideals inherent to Capitalism and Libertarianism. Your desire for a small government without social programs, and for government to keep its hands out of the free markets resulted in a situation where it was more profitable for all insurance companies across the board to outright deny a group of people health-care coverage. You keep telling us in other circumstances unrelated to health-care that the markets would correct for this, that some business would see a niche market to profit from, but guess what, that never happened. We had a pretty clear-cut case where an entire industry refused service to a group of people. So one potential solution to this problem that would not have involved government regulating the free markets would have been for the government itself to establish its own form of insurance for that group of people that was denied coverage, potentially operating at cost. But apparently, due to your own ideas about how things should be, it would be better to have government not interfere in an industry when it snubs its nose at a group of people and denies them service, and then not provide an alternative itself, because it seems the ideals of Capitalism and Small Government are more important than the health and well-being of human beings. Your desires, and those of the people like yourself, backed our country into a wall and resulted in this hamfisted mess.

But you can't get them to produce pink cuddly elephants that poop penicillin.

Actually the penicillium fungus makes penicillin...

[GGT]

Lewk doesn't want to "engage". But nice post, Illusions.

EDITORIAL

About Your Premiums
Published: September 24, 2010


With health insurers jacking up their premiums by double-digit amounts for people who buy their own policies, Republicans have been predictably eager to blame health care reform. Consumers, and voters, beware.

If your premiums are spiking suddenly, you can blame economic reality. The cost of medical care continues to soar upward, and the recession led many healthy people to drop coverage, leaving less-healthy enrollees who cost more to insure.

As for health care reform, the major elements, and major costs, don’t even kick in until 2014. The only provisions with the potential to affect premiums right now are a handful of consumer protections that are popular with the public, and not especially costly to implement.

Starting this week, insurers are prohibited from setting lifetime limits and restricted in setting annual limits on what they will pay for care, banned from rescinding policies after a beneficiary becomes sick and prohibited from excluding children with preexisting conditions. The new rules will also allow dependents up to the age of 26 to remain on their parents’ policies; preventive care will be provided without cost sharing; and there are new processes to appeal insurance company decisions. The critics aren’t saying anything about the huge value of those immediate benefits.

These new requirements do impose some new costs on insurers, but they certainly can’t be blamed for the double-digit increases many insurers have been seeking. If you listen closely to the insurers, they admit that.

The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that the average premium increase to pay for the new benefits should be about 1 percent to 2 percent, roughly consistent with an independent evaluation by the Urban Institute. If those estimates are optimistic, they are unlikely to be off by much. A Wall Street Journal analysis found insurers in various states seeking increases of 1 percent to 9 percent to pay for the new requirements and often even more to cover rising medical costs.

Some of the largest health insurers created a stir this week when they announced that they will no longer issue new child-only policies to people who buy their own policies. They were worried that, with no immediate mandate that every child carry insurance, parents would hang back until their children got sick.

It is disappointing but less draconian than it seems.

The market for child-only policies is small, and such children can still be covered through family policies, public programs for low-income people and new high-risk pools. The problem should disappear in 2014 when everyone will be required to carry insurance.

Not all the news about the insurers is bad. As Reed Abelson reported in The Times on Thursday, some companies are preparing to meet the challenge of reform by upgrading information technology systems, training employees and reducing overhead costs. Of course, the critics of health care reform aren’t mentioning that either.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/op...1.html?_r=1&hp

[Aimless]

You keep telling us in other circumstances unrelated to health-care that the markets would correct for this, that some business would see a niche market to profit from, but guess what, that never happened.

Why would anyone expect anything like that to happen? These industries are still goddamned gold-rushes.

[Illusions]

Why would anyone expect anything like that to happen? These industries are still goddamned gold-rushes.

I'm not Lewk so I don't know the answer to that.

[']['ear]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and potentially start a worthwhile debate by saying that the real blame here can be laid upon the ideals inherent to Capitalism and Libertarianism. Your desire for a small government without social programs, and for government to keep its hands out of the free markets resulted in a situation where it was more profitable for all insurance companies across the board to outright deny a group of people health-care coverage. You keep telling us in other circumstances unrelated to health-care that the markets would correct for this, that some business would see a niche market to profit from, but guess what, that never happened. We had a pretty clear-cut case where an entire industry refused service to a group of people. So one potential solution to this problem that would not have involved government regulating the free markets would have been for the government itself to establish its own form of insurance for that group of people that was denied coverage, potentially operating at cost. But apparently, due to your own ideas about how things should be, it would be better to have government not interfere in an industry when it snubs its nose at a group of people and denies them service, and then not provide an alternative itself, because it seems the ideals of Capitalism and Small Government are more important than the health and well-being of human beings. Your desires, and those of the people like yourself, backed our country into a wall and resulted in this hamfisted mess.

Lewk really never has the balls to say "let 'em all die," but that what he means.

Actually the penicillium fungus makes penicillin...

Far better than elephants pooping it, if you ask me. Mold (not fungus) doesn't require health care, or much space to grow. It is also a more accurate mascot for the Republican party than the elephant.