Insurer's steep rate hike may aid Obama's cause

[Swede]

The president's administration borrowed from California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein a key new element of its own reform plan released Monday: a proposal to give the federal government the power to regulate insurance rate hikes.

Feinstein had made the proposal months ago, but it caught fire last week after Anthem Blue Cross of California announced its giant rate increase - up to 39 percent - on 700,000 individual policyholders, which the company has delayed until May.

Insurance premium increases have been "disgraceful, in a word, and I think there is a kind of greed out there and this has to be put to an end," Feinstein said Monday, comparing regulation of health insurance to regulation of electricity rates.



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/22/MNPA1C5DA3.DTL

[blueworld]

1. IMHO, Weinstein is a well-coiffed slug. Forgive me.

Insurance companies - ALL companies - exist to make a profit. They can only do that if they raise premiums or trim services/product. If they can't raise the price of the candy bar, you will get one less almond on your Almond Joy. Or fewer M & M's in the little bag. Believe me, if they can't raise the price of cereal you will NOT be gettin' 2 scoops of raisins anymore. It's the nature of the beast; it MUST be that way for their survival. So DiFi proposes a rate regulatory agency? Let me consider how that will work.

Let's assume I'm a bottom-feeding, scum-sucking, greedy pig of an Insurance Co. CEO and I need a 10% premium increase to keep my home in the Cayman Islands & my stable of lunchtime prostitutes. I would go to the Fed Regulator and demand a 25% increase. This will give the DC crew time to bloviate, bluster, spew & hold press conferences denouncing the outrage against the American consumer. Then they'll scream that a 12% increase is more than enough, by gum!

From the asphalt jungle of Harrison, NJ to the copper stills of West Bumblefork, VA, "we the people" understand the fine art of negotiation. Without a public option to force competition the Feds will have to address the underwriting criteria of the Insurance Mafia, which is tantamount to playing eternal whack-a-mole, but at least it's a start.