Health insurers seek rate hikes, citing new reform law

Those like VL don't pay, they freeload off of the producing members of society.

pineinthegrass wrote: I have individual health insurance here with Humana. Not that I'm defending their price increases, but I haven't seen anything close to 30%. From 2009 to 2010 my premium increased 20%. I haven't gotten my new rate for 2011 yet (should get it soon), but checking their web site it looks like my premium will go up 15%.

I'm actually surprised if it is "only" going up 15%. They are already required by the new health care bill to provide better coverage. One thing they can no longer do starting about now, is cancelling your policy once you have a big claim (they look at your original application and find something minor you forgot to disclose). Just that probably will cost them a lot of money.

Sometimes the big jumps are due to increases in health coverage such at the 15% increase you note PLUS a person moves into a high risk group - like being over a certain age. So there can be multiple factors at play.

We all agree there are many reasons that insurance companies increase their rates......which leads me to believe that the new law is not the sole reason, probably not even the main reasons, that insurance premiums will go up. The fears that medicare advantage plans would either disappear or the rates would go up because of the new law turned out to be unfounded....the plans are still around, and the rates will, for the most part, go down this year. So much fear, so little substance to it.

Vice Lord wrote: The public option means No premiums..They don't pay premiums in the UK, or in Canada or Hawaii, they just get Healthcare...Free

Sorry, but that's nothing to do with what the public option was under the health care bill. It did have premiums, and most everyone who didn't already have insurance had to pay them. Yes, lower income people would get subsidies, but they still had to pay a premium, unless they qualified for Medicaid. And "rich people", like individuals making over an amazing $48K or so, would have to pay full premiums and fork out another couple thousand dollars on top of those premiums to pay those subsidies.

And like I said, the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) did state that the premiums for the public option would of been a bit higher than getting individual insurance from private companies. I could dig it up for you if you insist, but that would take some time and I'm not sure you are serious about anything anyway. I've already been through this before, so I know I can find the report.

Whatever private option you are talking about has nothing to do with the one we now have in this country under the new health care bill.

daisypusher wrote:

pineinthegrass wrote: I have individual health insurance here with Humana. Not that I'm defending their price increases, but I haven't seen anything close to 30%. From 2009 to 2010 my premium increased 20%. I haven't gotten my new rate for 2011 yet (should get it soon), but checking their web site it looks like my premium will go up 15%.

I'm actually surprised if it is "only" going up 15%. They are already required by the new health care bill to provide better coverage. One thing they can no longer do starting about now, is cancelling your policy once you have a big claim (they look at your original application and find something minor you forgot to disclose). Just that probably will cost them a lot of money.

Sometimes the big jumps are due to increases in health coverage such at the 15% increase you note PLUS a person moves into a high risk group - like being over a certain age. So there can be multiple factors at play.

Yes, I agree you can get much bigger rate increases if you enter a new age group. With Humana, and Blue Shield (who I was with before Humana) it happens every 5 years or so. But I'm in the middle of that 5 year bracket, so my increases were not due to that.

And while I didn't see the 30% increase noted by Archer, it's very painful how much my rates are going up. But I don't see a plan yet to reduce the increases. This might be tougher to find, but I had a Yahoo Finance report showing corporate profits, and the health industry is actually pretty low on that list. The big problem, IMO, is due to wildly escalating health care costs. Insurance company profits, and tort costs are a part of it, but not a very big part.

why wouldn't premiums go up. Ours did, and it is a trust (non-profit). It went up a little for the usual things...more expensive medicines and treatments, but the major increase, according to our board is the new mandates. No lifetime limit, and have to insure kids to 26. That costs more...period.

Since kids between 18 and 26 generally do not have health insurance because they a pretty healthy and rarely need a doctor (I didn't get health insurance until I was in my 30s), why would it cost more to insure them? Isn't adding them getting more money into the pool for services they probably won't use, or use sparingly?

Wayne Harrison wrote: Since kids between 18 and 26 generally do not have health insurance because they a pretty healthy and rarely need a doctor (I didn't get health insurance until I was in my 30s), why would it cost more to insure them? Isn't adding them getting more money into the pool for services they probably won't use, or use sparingly?

Exactly. You are adding them to the pool, so you must charge something for it. Yes, they are fairly low risk for major items, but our trust had to add actuarial costs for them. They are actually fairly high (especially young males) in accidents, which can cost a lot of $$.

That is one reason why costs are going up. You can't add these kids to an existing plan for nothing, especially one like ours where there is no profit...just all the costs divided by members.

It's not just adding the kids and eliminating the lifetime limit, it's the combination of other health care reform rules such as paying more for preventive visits. Plans are required to cover those at no cost to the member (if they are not a grandfathered plan). In addition, the list of preventive care services is larger than what was normally thought to be preventive care. Our plan costs were projected to increase by 11% in 2011 but not just due to HC Reform. Utilization in our plan is up by millions of dollars. Our plan is running in a deficit. We're self-insured so this hits the company's bottom line. We must pass part of this on to our employees and our customers. We're not making any money off of providing health care to our employees. Like I said before, we're not solving rising health care costs.