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ObamaCare Disaster in California
FrontPage Mag
Arnold Ahlert
8/1/2014
Excerpt:
California’s experience with ObamaCare portends a dubious future for the nation. “The rate increase from 2013 to 2014, on average, was significantly higher than rate increases in the past,” said Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones at a news conference Tuesday. Jones admitted that Californians endured premium rate increases ranging from 22 percent to 88 percent from last year to this year. “The rate increase from 2013 to 2014, on average, was significantly higher than rate increases in the past,” Jones added.
Unsurprisingly, younger Californians bore the brunt. Jones cites one region of Los Angeles County, where people age 25 paid 52 percent more for a silver plan than they had for something similar in 2013. Yet Jones was also forced to note someone age 55 saw a 38 percent increase in their premiums.
Jones, a partisan Democrat, isn’t sounding the alarm because of altruistic concerns for the residents of his state. Instead he’s pushing voters to embrace Proposition 45, a ballot measure that would give him considerable control over the the pricing of insurance in the Golden State, allowing him and other government officials to reject price increases deemed “excessive.” “Unless Proposition 45 is passed or some other law is enacted to provide health-insurance rate regulation and the requirement that health insurers and HMOs justify their rates, we are going to continue to see dramatic year-over-year increases,” he warned.
Californians Against Higher Health Care Costs, a collation of businesses, healthcare groups, unions and civil rights organizations, adamantly oppose Prop 45. “The insurance commissioner is using this misleading report to promote a ballot measure that would give him vast new powers over health care decisions,” said Robin Swanson, a spokeswoman for the group. “Our coalition of doctors, nurses, labor unions and health care providers opposing the measure thinks that giving one politician the power to override decisions made by the state’s successful health exchange is the wrong approach to controlling costs.”
One wonders if they feel the same way about a politician named Obama, who unilaterally over-rode healthcare decisions enacted by Congress.
Charles Bacchi, the group’s executive vice president, echoed Swanson’s sentiment. “Health plans are focused on working with Covered California to provide affordable premiums during the upcoming open enrollment period, while Commissioner Jones is looking backward,” he said. “His analysis doesn’t take into account subsidies, enrollees who are benefiting from the ACA, or acknowledge how the ACA has substantially expanded coverage and benefits while also changing the way premiums are priced.”
Jones believes otherwise. “We’re going to continue to see rates go up simply because … no one has the ability to stop excessive rates,” he said, further insisting the 2015 rate increases proposed by insurers will be lower than they might ordinarily be because the providers won’t want to offend the voting public prior to the 2014 election. “There would be a huge public outcry, and the public would respond at the ballot box,” Jones warned. “I have no question that what we’re going to see … will be much lower than would otherwise occur.”
Unfortunately California, much like other states, can’t postpone reality indefinitely, even if they attempt to do so by fiat. As the Wall Street Journal explains, those enrolled in new healthcare plans “are showing higher rates of serious health conditions than other insurance customers, according to an early analysis of medical claims, putting pressure on insurers around the country as they prepare to propose rates for next year.”
The numbers are daunting, as 27 percent of enrollees who have seen doctors or other healthcare providers in the first quarter of this year are dealing with serious health issues including diabetes, psychiatric conditions, asthma, heart problems or cancer. That percentage represents an 11 percent increase over last year’s individual consumer market covering the same time frame—and more than double the 12 percent rate of those who were able to keep their former policies.
“The findings provide the clearest picture so far of the health status of those who bought plans under the Affordable Care Act, and show a sharply bifurcated consumer insurance market—with sicker, and costlier, people in health-law plans and healthier people sticking with previous coverage,” the Journal adds.
Hoover Institution research fellow Lanhee Chen states the obvious reasons why. “The law’s one-size-fits-all regulatory regime, which requires insurers to offer coverage to all comers and prohibits pricing of coverage based on an applicant’s health status, was bound to increase the number of relatively sicker people purchasing insurance through the exchanges,” he writes, adding that healthcare exchanges “remain a haven for those who may consume more medical services than others.” Thus as Chet Burrell, chief executive officer of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, concludes, “Over a period of time, the rates have to go up to catch up with the reality of who enrolled.”
...........................................
View the complete article at:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arn...in-california/
FrontPage Mag
Arnold Ahlert
8/1/2014
Excerpt:
California’s experience with ObamaCare portends a dubious future for the nation. “The rate increase from 2013 to 2014, on average, was significantly higher than rate increases in the past,” said Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones at a news conference Tuesday. Jones admitted that Californians endured premium rate increases ranging from 22 percent to 88 percent from last year to this year. “The rate increase from 2013 to 2014, on average, was significantly higher than rate increases in the past,” Jones added.
Unsurprisingly, younger Californians bore the brunt. Jones cites one region of Los Angeles County, where people age 25 paid 52 percent more for a silver plan than they had for something similar in 2013. Yet Jones was also forced to note someone age 55 saw a 38 percent increase in their premiums.
Jones, a partisan Democrat, isn’t sounding the alarm because of altruistic concerns for the residents of his state. Instead he’s pushing voters to embrace Proposition 45, a ballot measure that would give him considerable control over the the pricing of insurance in the Golden State, allowing him and other government officials to reject price increases deemed “excessive.” “Unless Proposition 45 is passed or some other law is enacted to provide health-insurance rate regulation and the requirement that health insurers and HMOs justify their rates, we are going to continue to see dramatic year-over-year increases,” he warned.
Californians Against Higher Health Care Costs, a collation of businesses, healthcare groups, unions and civil rights organizations, adamantly oppose Prop 45. “The insurance commissioner is using this misleading report to promote a ballot measure that would give him vast new powers over health care decisions,” said Robin Swanson, a spokeswoman for the group. “Our coalition of doctors, nurses, labor unions and health care providers opposing the measure thinks that giving one politician the power to override decisions made by the state’s successful health exchange is the wrong approach to controlling costs.”
One wonders if they feel the same way about a politician named Obama, who unilaterally over-rode healthcare decisions enacted by Congress.
Charles Bacchi, the group’s executive vice president, echoed Swanson’s sentiment. “Health plans are focused on working with Covered California to provide affordable premiums during the upcoming open enrollment period, while Commissioner Jones is looking backward,” he said. “His analysis doesn’t take into account subsidies, enrollees who are benefiting from the ACA, or acknowledge how the ACA has substantially expanded coverage and benefits while also changing the way premiums are priced.”
Jones believes otherwise. “We’re going to continue to see rates go up simply because … no one has the ability to stop excessive rates,” he said, further insisting the 2015 rate increases proposed by insurers will be lower than they might ordinarily be because the providers won’t want to offend the voting public prior to the 2014 election. “There would be a huge public outcry, and the public would respond at the ballot box,” Jones warned. “I have no question that what we’re going to see … will be much lower than would otherwise occur.”
Unfortunately California, much like other states, can’t postpone reality indefinitely, even if they attempt to do so by fiat. As the Wall Street Journal explains, those enrolled in new healthcare plans “are showing higher rates of serious health conditions than other insurance customers, according to an early analysis of medical claims, putting pressure on insurers around the country as they prepare to propose rates for next year.”
The numbers are daunting, as 27 percent of enrollees who have seen doctors or other healthcare providers in the first quarter of this year are dealing with serious health issues including diabetes, psychiatric conditions, asthma, heart problems or cancer. That percentage represents an 11 percent increase over last year’s individual consumer market covering the same time frame—and more than double the 12 percent rate of those who were able to keep their former policies.
“The findings provide the clearest picture so far of the health status of those who bought plans under the Affordable Care Act, and show a sharply bifurcated consumer insurance market—with sicker, and costlier, people in health-law plans and healthier people sticking with previous coverage,” the Journal adds.
Hoover Institution research fellow Lanhee Chen states the obvious reasons why. “The law’s one-size-fits-all regulatory regime, which requires insurers to offer coverage to all comers and prohibits pricing of coverage based on an applicant’s health status, was bound to increase the number of relatively sicker people purchasing insurance through the exchanges,” he writes, adding that healthcare exchanges “remain a haven for those who may consume more medical services than others.” Thus as Chet Burrell, chief executive officer of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, concludes, “Over a period of time, the rates have to go up to catch up with the reality of who enrolled.”
...........................................
View the complete article at:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arn...in-california/