Insurers Set To Raise Prices, Walk Away From Consumers: Goldman Report

[laughingliberal]

The market concentration for health insurance is so monopolized in some areas that insurance companies are willing to raise prices and lose customers in an effort to improve their bottom line, a leading insurance broker told Wall Street analysts on Wednesday.

In a conference call organized by Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, Steve Lewis, a highly regarded broker at the world's third largest insurance broker, Willis, painted a picture of the health insurance market in which employers seem likely to be priced out of coverage.

Noting that "price competition" between insurers was "down from a year ago," Lewis relayed that "incumbent carriers seem more willing than ever to walk away from existing business."

The phenomenon of insurers pricing their policies beyond where consumers can afford it seems to be already taking place. Last month Anthem Blue Cross told customers it would hike their health insurance premiums by as much as 39 percent (with the expectation that some would drop coverage altogether). In December, the Huffington Post reported that Aetna was planning on losing more than 600,000 customers by raising prices on their consumers in 2010. <snip>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/05/insurers-set-to-raise-pri_n_487684.html

And yet, they are prepared to serve us up to this criminal element on a silver platter with the full weight of federal law behind it. And no Public Option to provide the competition to put a stop to some of this.

[Mike 03]

1. Yep. I don't understand why most Americans don't understand this.

It boggles the mind. But thank you for posting this!

[depakid]

2. They're just exercising the monopoly powers granted to them by the federal government

[grasswire]

3. it's time to appoint a special prosecutor

This is obviously a RICO matter. It's time for feds to seize computers and files in the executive offices of insurers.

The fraud on consumers is heinous. It's warfare.

[Missy Vixen]

5. Take a look at the campaign contributions, for starters

People will go to jail if there's a special prosecutor with any kind of ethics, and it will go all the way to the top.

It's time to get CC and lobbying dollars out of our government!

[1776Forever]

7. Excellent observation! I am sending this to Ed & Rachel - hopefully it will be addressed!

It is TIME!:kick:

[grasswire]

8. it's clearly fraud

The parallel to this if it were in the auto industry would be:

A car dealership sells you a car but gives you a coffin.

[Missy Vixen]

4. K&friggin'R

We lost our health insurance last year when DH lost his job. We both have pre-existing conditions. We can't get insurance through normal means. Our premiums for our state's high-risk pool? $1400 per month.

I'm not sure what it's going to take to get President Obama to understand that the system is broken, forcing people to buy insurance with the same safeguards for consumers he put onto oh, TARP and the Making Home Affordable program (namely, NONE,) WILL NOT WORK!

What the hell is it the 50 million uninsured (and another 50 million insured who can't afford to use the insurance they have,) are supposed to do?

:mad:

[ProSense]

6. The Goldman guy is actually advocating

against reform:

The Democratic-authored health care package would eliminate the anti-trust exemption that health insurers enjoy, require insurers to spend a high percentage of their funds on medical costs and create a commission that would oversee unexpected hikes in premiums. And yet, Lewis says that the clients he represents (employers who purchase health care coverage) have largely soured on the reform process even if they are favorable towards the overall goals.

"I think most people would acknowledge that there's a need for health care reform, employers continue to be very frustrated," he said. "But I would also say that many of them still view the legislation and the partisanship coming out of Washington as possibly the medicine worse than the disease. So, many employer groups that we're talking to feel like it would be a shame to lose an opportunity to do something with respect to health care reform. But many are starting to feel like maybe nothing is better than something in this current environment."

Surely Goldman Sachs can be trusted?

Yeah, right!

:rofl:




edited for clarity

[laughingliberal]

9. Regardless of their stand on 'reform' I believe the details of the insurance companies' activites

are accurate. Or have you read they plan to lower prices and find a way to let more people in?

[ProSense]

10. "Or have you read they plan to lower prices and find a way to let more people in? "

Do you expect them to without reform and the force of law?

[laughingliberal]

11. totally missing the point of the response I made to the poster above

who was implying the story was not credible because the Goldman guy quoted was advocating against reform.

[ProSense]

12. The response is to the question you asked, and is absolutely on point. n/t

[laughingliberal]

13. Let's go through this step by step and I'll speak real slowly

The response I responded to was questioning the validity (that means credibility which means believability) of the report I posted cause it quotes a guy from Goldman. I said the report was still credible unless he had some evidence the insurers were planning to lower their prices and find a way to let more people in. See, my problem was the poster to whom I replied was engaging in a common, disingenuous debate technique we see here, often, which involves killing the messenger rather than addressing the message. My response was not arguing that the insurers have any plans to lower prices or let more people in but, rather, that they plan to do just what the article says they are planning regardless of the source who it reporting it. Do you see? My question was rhetorical. IOW, are you saying this is not the insurance companies' plan because it was Goldman reporting it? And does that little smiley thing mean they are lying and insurers are not going to do this?

Oh, look! That was you! Deriding the report cause it was quoting a Goldman guy who was telling us the insurance companies were planning rate hikes and customer dumps. So, it's a Goldman guy. Is he telling the truth or not?

[waiting for hope]

16. Wow, you dodged a bullet ...

and didn't get "linked" too death! :rofl:

K&R on the original post.

[Nikki Stone1]

17. Lined to the Canadian tar sands, an article on rock formation, and politics in the Andes

and all the other silly links that end up substituting for a brain. ;)

[waiting for hope]

19. I know!

Those Links are Hilarious!, I just wish there were More!, because, there always is time during a busy day to click on mindless crap!

:rofl:

[laughingliberal]

21. That's it! You have perfectly captured the spirit! nt

[Nikki Stone1]

24. Yes she has.

Brilliant!

[laughingliberal]

20. Lol! nt

[girl gone mad]

14. What he says about employers having soured on this reform is completely accurate.

I am not familiar with this particular analyst, but based on this article he appears to know what he's talking about.

No question that Goldman Sachs is an extremely corrupt corporation, but not every analyst working for them should be painted with your broad brush. The same goes for Citi, which has provided some very excellent market insight over the past year, despite the rampant and festering evil at the top of the IB division.

[inna]

15. exactly. nt

[Nikki Stone1]

18. So the mandate will allow them to raise prices and keep customers, by force

Charming. :D

[laughingliberal]

22. That's how I see it. Nothing I've seen reassures me they won't continue to jack their rates

just as before and now, we'll have little recourse.

[Nikki Stone1]

23. We'll be fined or put in jail if we can't keep up with the premiums.

:(