Obama Admin Wants To Give Big Bailout To Health Insurers
The "Affordable" Care Act? Really? Affordable for whom?
There's a piece reported by Robert Pear in The New York Times with the headline "Insurers Are Offered Assistance For Losses." That's coded language for taxpayers are going to be paying big for the Leviathon fuckup that is Obamacare:
Facing a political furor over the cancellation of insurance policies, Mr. Obama announced on Nov. 14 that he would temporarily waive some requirements of the new federal law and allow insurers to renew "current policies for current enrollees" for a year.Insurers criticized the president's move, saying it could upset the assumptions on which they had set premiums for new insurance products providing coverage in 2014.
Many people with serious illnesses were excluded from the old policies. As a result, the administration said, people on those policies may be healthier than average.
If they do not enroll in the new health plans, the administration said, the average cost of claims for people in those plans may be higher than expected, and this increase in costs could lead to unexpected financial losses for insurance companies.
To reduce this risk, the administration said it could provide financial assistance to certain insurers through a program under which the government will share in their losses and profits for the next three years.
Any such assistance would come on top of federal subsidies that the government plans to pay insurers to make coverage more affordable for low- and middle-income people under the new law. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that those subsidy payments will exceed $1 trillion over the next 10 years.
The administration said it could not immediately determine the cost of the assistance for insurers because it did not know how many people would stay in existing plans or how many would decide to enroll in new policies that provide additional benefits and consumer protections, as required by the 2010 health law.
via @FBNStossel
So let me get this straight. Policies are being cancelled; premiums are going up; coverage is going down; a lot of people buying the insurance are being subsidized, and now the insurance companies need to be subsidized. What's wrong with this picture?
Cousin Dave at December 4, 2013 6:30 AM
Everything.
As should be obvious by the fact that Obamacare supporters have caused the cancellation of cancer treatments for thousands of Americans.
Yeah, THAT will wait for a clerk to reassign you to an approved stranger for tra=eatment you now can't afford because there is a NEW deductible you haven't met!
Radwaste at December 4, 2013 8:22 AM
These insurance companies are nothing more than a shakedown ponzi scheme, plain and simple. There is so much bloated bureaucracy and inefficient nonsense in these companies, it's a wonder they get anything done.
I'm a provider. I'm in network with all of the major carriers. They create more headaches, administrative nonsense,and added costs to my practice that it makes it untenable to continue being in network. However, the vast majority of patients don't understand they're being had.
For instance, when I had some questions about filling out some paperwork I was once transferred to an individual's voice mail box, but couldn't leave a message because the it was full. After 4 additional phone calls to the general number that redirects offshore, we eventually discovered that this individual was no longer with the company, and there was no other employee available to answer these type of questions. The direction was to complete the form and wait 60 days for a response advising what would need to be corrected - and another 60-day timeline to see if it had been completed correctly that time. This is typical.
I could go on and on about what it is to work with the major US insurance companies.
The problem with the US healthcare system isn't the system itself, it's that day-to-day treatment decisions are driven by cubicle drones, often in another country reading from a script, guided by pseudo-science, and profit margins.
There doesn't need to be a bailout, there needs to be a wholesale gleaning and overhaul of how these companies operate. Period.
SilenceDogood at December 4, 2013 9:02 AM
So let me get this straight, the administration and Congress forced (by partisan vote) a law down taxpayers' throats making catastrophic coverage policies illegal and forcing insurance companies to cancel them - and now the administration wants taxpayers to foot the bill to financially subsidize the reinstatement of those very same policies?
Conan the Grammarian at December 4, 2013 9:24 AM
Conan, absolutely true. And Silence, that's the inevitable result of the cost being invisible to the person receiving the service. Why wish for socialized medicine? In many respects, we already have it.
Cousin Dave at December 4, 2013 9:55 AM
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