“If you like your plan, you can keep your
plan. Period.” *
*until Dec 31, 2013 — oops, make that Dec 31, 2014. President Obama.
A
one-year extension?
At his press conference announcing this one-year extension, Pres. Obama talked
about insurers possibly charging 20% more than they did last year, for ‘lesser’
coverage. Of course the ACA-compliant health care premiums (for many) are 50%
higher than last year. And it includes things like maternity care for people not of child-bearing years (or gender for
that matter). It includes pediatric
dental, rehabilitative services
and mental health coverage. It also
includes charging the YOUNG extra to
offset the true premiums for the ELDERLY.
Given a choice, many people DON’T WANT and DON’T NEED and CAN'T AFFORD these coverages.
People just aren’t smart enough to know what they want, what they need, and
what they can afford. So government better tell you, and then force you to buy
it. And if you don’t buy it, we’ll get the IRS involved.But wait, there’s more!
The other issue, asleep, but ever-present: ANY delays in full implementation
of ACA run the risk of people putting off (or refusing) enrollment in the new
programs. That means that only the sick and highly subsidized will sign up.
That combo really throws off the cost curve. Since insurers set rates for 2015
based on their costs (loss experience) in the first part of 2014 (among other factors), premiums
for 2015 could go up dramatically.
NBCnews says: One fear is that if too many people are allowed to keep their
older, cheap policies, they won’t join the pool of people buying on the
exchanges – and that’ll drive up prices next year for everyone else. The more
healthy people are in the pool buying policies, the more they offset the sicker
people in the pool, and the less insurance companies can charge everyone...
Price is the main concern of most Americans when it comes to buying
insurance, and the Obama administration is keen to be able to say Obamacare is
keeping prices low.
Good luck with that. Out of 10 Essential Coverage items, most people don’t
want (or need or want to pay extra for) at least 3 or 4 of them. Those ‘extra’s which
the government deems essential DRIVE UP THE COST. Covering sicker people
(uninsurable, in underwritten policies) for the same price as the healthy,
DRIVES UP THE COST. Extending coverage to illegal aliens while specifically
exempting them from paying into the system, DRIVES UP THE COST. Paying millions
to leftist groups for ‘marketing’ and awareness campaigns, DRIVES UP THE COST.
When private insurers do marketing-type things, they have to be accountable for the
cost and benefit of these decisions. When government does it, it becomes yet
another slush fund.
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