Health insurance hikes (over 75%!!!) stun small businesses

[n2doc]

Victoria Colliver, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, February 26, 2010

While Anthem Blue Cross has been taking the heat for proposing rate increases of up to 39 percent on individual consumers, other health insurers have stunned some small businesses with hikes that in some cases exceed 75 percent.


Tom Simmons, president of an Oakland design and consulting firm with four employees, said he had just read about the Anthem increases when he opened a letter from his insurer, Blue Shield of California, informing him his monthly family premium would go up to $1,596 a month from $908, a nearly 76 percent increase.

"This industry is getting out of control. It makes me fearful of future years and what could become of things if something doesn't change," said Simmons, whose business health insurance policy also covers his family of three.

He ultimately was able to reduce the increase to about 16 percent, but only after switching to a plan with a higher deductible and other higher out-of-pocket expenses.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/26/MNLV1C78RH.DTL&tsp=1

C'mon folks! Get out there and pressure Congress to pass the Public Option. It is the only way (other than single payer, which is better) health care is going to survive in this country.

[sui generis]

1. Actually it's not the "only way"

The other way is to let health insurance fail when people stop paying premiums.

But enough of that. The best way is to have a public plan with a PRIVATE option. Seriously.

Why didn't they propose that to begin with? If our national value system says that access to healthcare is a right of our citizens, then private industry is competing with us, not the other way around.

[begin_within]

2. It's almost like they're trying to put themselves out of business.

by that I mean the health insurance companies. In the middle of the Great Recession, they RAISE their prices....

[Hannah Bell]

12. no, they're trying to put *us* out of business.

[customerserviceguy]

3. The public option might not be the panacea that we make it out to be

If families are being charged $1600 a month for insurance, and the public option plan is only $1500 a month, we're still worse off than this man who was only paying about $900 a month last year.

Cost containment is the only ultimate answer to the problem, and getting rid of the insurance infrastructure, along with its needless expenses like advertising, is the first step on that path. PO might just be the band-aid that lets the would fester even more, when amputation is what's called for.

[SoCalDem]

9. except that the money paid for the premium would go for actual medical care

and not into bonuses & big shiny buildings for insurance companies..

people say that we NEED the insurance companies, but do we really?

If you went to the bank to cash a $100 check and they gave you $70, would you be okay with that?

Or what if the post office wanted to charge you $30 to take your $100 check to the power company for your bill?


Without all us suckers sending them cash for that nifty little plastic card we show when we go to the doctor and PAY our additional copays, what exactly WOULD the insurance companies do? Would they move their business model to Canada? England? France? India? Japan? Switzerland?

they have NOWHERE TO GO.. They are the parasite and we are the host..without us they die..without THEM, we have the opportunity to pay taxes instead of "premiums", and then have all that money pooled to actually pay for medical procedures..and the payments would be based on our incomes..not our "luck" in finding a job with benefits.

[glinda]

10. Husband and I used to pay 1300/mo just for two of us. Yes. Insurance Co. must go.

[gratuitous]

4. Well, I'm sure all these savvy entrepreneurs will be calling their Chambers of Commerce

After all, wasn't it the national Chamber of Commerce that was running ads last year, telling people to oppose that socialistic single payer idea for national health? These small business captains of commerce should call their local chapters and the national office to see what the Chamber of Commerce is willing to do for them now that they've gotten their very own round of premium sticker shocks. The brilliant business minds saving us all from the specter of lowered costs and increased bargaining power will surely have a genius idea tout de suite, non?

[glinda]

11. Chamber Board is run by Big Pharma and Oil ties

[glinda]

13. It is a joke to think they will help or that they care. They should be shut down.

[jotsy]

5. Congressional hearings on this matter were infuriating.

I say if we're a nation of liberators, we should liberate the doctors from the insurance companies and while we're at it, liberate the teachers from an educational system under siege by private interests.

Does anyone know if HR 676 (single payer) ever actually got a CBO score?

[librechik]

6. corporations have no brain or morals--they just keep trying to profit forever

no matter who suffers. And if humans don't start to control them soon, they will kill the rest of us too.

[Tailormyst]

7. Single payer non-profit is the only solution

Until people figure this out, the problem will continue. As long as our politicians are bought and paid for by big business, the problem will continue.

[fan of the arts]

8. War criminals roam free, ya think the people who allow that care about health?

They don't, it has to do with being a human being with a conscience.