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

[kpete]

Source: Huffington Post

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

First Posted: 03- 5-10 02:02 PM | Updated: 03- 5-10 03:03 PM

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.

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

---

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

[Jkid]

1. Why hasn't Obama has the balls to put them out of business?

SINGLE PAYER
NO PRIVATE PROFIT
FINAL DESTINATION.

[ThomCat]

3. Because he apparently doesn't see it being his place to tell businesses

how to run their businesses. Even when those businesses are predatory and are hurting vast numbers of the American People. :(

Those Businesses gave him more money than we did, so they are his real constituents. Not us.

[inna]

6. +1

Obama:

"I have no interest in putting insurance companies out of business. They provide a legitimate service, and employ a lot of our friends and neighbors."

:wtf:

:banghead:


Edited to add: they're not just "useless", they are extremely harmful. Their whole purpose is to generate profits and deny care, and Obama is well aware of that fact. Calling them "legitimate" is a travesty.

[No Elephants]

13. Single payer could employ those same friends and neighbors and still charge less than health

insurers do, unless we do some dumb thing like privatize single payer profits while keeing any losses in the public sector. You know, like we do with banks and investment bankers these days.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[heli]

2. If this were France in 1789, they all would be getting a shave

[No Elephants]

14. The French in 1789 were not sheeple. Americans since 1789 pretty much have been.

Guess getting the Constitution did it. And now, we don't even mind that it's gone again.

[proud patriot]

4. Insurers are going to Bankrupt America if we don't STOP THEM !

:grr:

[Mithreal]

7. It was either us or them. They're Too Big To Fail, we're not.

[prolesunited]

5. Gives the phrase

your money or you life new meaning.

[WillyT]

8. K & R !!!

:kick:

[Canuckistanian]

9. There it is again

Whenever there's mention of a financial crisis, whenever there's mention of questionable practices, whenever there's mention of unfair monopolies, there it is.

Goldman Sachs.

[girl gone mad]

10. Maybe Obama will listen, since they always seem to have his ear.

[cutlassmama]

12. +10000

[Kablooie]

11. And even if the health bill passes they will do it. The bill won't start for 4 years.

Plenty of time for the insurers to destroy millions of people's lives, send them to their graves, and become wealthier than ever in the process.

[No Elephants]

16. And when the bill finallly kicks in, it won't matter all that much because it is so lame.

Besides, by then, it will probably be a crime to take any action that might tend to decrease the profits of Big Health, much as drug re-importaton from Canada is already a crime..

[Kablooie]

18. Now there you go again. Speaking truths when no truths were asked for.

[Flaneur]

17. I'm starting to think it's time for angry mobs.

Or at least direct action against these useless parasites who grow fat off our illnesses.

Kill the insurance industry now!

[Greyhound]

19. When does the estate tax come back? n/t