Health reform allows goverment to send insurers really strong letters

[Enrique]

This is the way it's going to be. The insurance companies are still going to jack up premiums and we're still going to be talking about it.

At some point, we will need to pass some kind of LAW. OK? A LAW, where we can take them to court instead of sending them letters.

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/117965-health-plans-respond-to-obama-administrations-warning-on-premiums

The main health insurance lobby reacted strongly Thursday afternoon after the Obama administration called on health plans to stop "misinformation and scare tactics" about the healthcare reform law.

The administration's letter to America's Health Insurance Plans comes after several health plans told customers that they were raising rates in part because of the new law. In it, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius warned: "I want AHIP’s members to be put on notice: the Administration, in partnership with states, will not tolerate unjustified rate hikes in the name of consumer protections."

"Health insurance premiums are increasing because of soaring prices for medical services, the impact of younger and healthier people dropping their insurance during the weak economy, and additional benefits required under the new law," AHIP President and CEO Karen Ignagni responded in a statement. "The new health care reform law mandates that health insurance coverage include a wide range of new benefits beyond what many families and small businesses previously purchased. It's a basic law of economics that additional benefits incur additional costs, and the impact on premiums depends on the type and amount of coverage policyholders had before. Health plans will continue to do everything they can to incorporate all of these new benefits while keeping health care coverage as affordable as possible for families and employers."

Sebelius acknowledges that the new law will cause an increase in premiums, albeit "minimal."

"According to our analysis and those of some industry and academic experts, any potential premium impact from the new consumer protections and increased quality provisions under the Affordable Care Act will be minimal," she writes. "We estimate that that the effect will be no more than one to two percent."

Excessive premium hikes, Sebelius warns, will not be tolerated.

"We will also keep track of insurers with a record of unjustified rate increases: those plans may be excluded from health insurance Exchanges in 2014. Simply stated, we will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections."

[midnight]

1. good.

[pocoloco]

4. Especially if they have fireplaces!

[ProSense]

2. That's a good thing, and it also allows the government

to exclude insurers who don't comply with the laws from the exchange.

So there is that.

[flpoljunkie]

5. That strikes me as both a deterrent and an encentive- provided they follow through

[daleanime]

10. It 'allows'....

Thank God it doesn't require, what would we do then? And who's the insider-I mean company approved-damn it, who's the 'government official' who makes any kind of decision?

[kenny blankenship]

3. What is needed is a law that relegates insurance companies to the margins of the health care field

as done in Canada. You can't finesse these people.

[area51]

7. +1

Insurance cos. don't exist to provide health care and save human lives; they exist to make a profit.

Each day, 273 people die due to lack of health care in the U.S.; that's 100,000 deaths per year.

We need single-payer health care, not a welfare bailout for the serial-killer insurance agencies.

We don't need the GingrichCare of mandated, unregulated, for-profit insurance that is still too expensive, only pays parts of medical bills, denies claims, and bankrupts people. Republinazi '93 plan:

"Subtitle F: Universal Coverage - Requires each citizen or lawful permanent resident to be covered under a qualified health plan or equivalent health care program by January 1, 2005."

"We will never have real reform until people's health stops being treated as a financial opportunity for corporations."

[Aramchek]

6. at some point you will tire of your constant barrage of Obama attacks, right?

[zipplewrath]

9. This qualifies as an "attack"?

Wow, the bar has been set real low.

[Aramchek]

12. that is just how petty this OP can be. watch long enough and you'll see that I speak the truth.

[dflprincess]

13. Facts about the insurance bill are now "attacks"?

Perhaps Obama shouldn't have signed the bailout if he didn't want to be "attacked" for what is in it.

[Inuca]

8. Ezra Klein on the effect on costs

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/09/does_health-care_reform_bend_t.html

[IndianaGreen]

11. The Obama Administration also sent a memo to BP telling them not to use dispersant Corexit

Did that stop BP?

[bvar22]

14. Health Insurance Premiums are increasing because....

...they CAN.
Nobody is stopping them.