Health insurance costs deal blow to Obama

[FarCenter]

The cost of health insurance has surged in the US this year, according to a survey of employers, dealing a blow to claims by the Obama administration that healthcare legislation introduced last year would curb costs.

Insurance premiums for family health benefits in 2011 jumped 9 per cent from a year ago to $15,073, according to a study released on Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. That represented a sharp acceleration from 2010, when premiums rose by a modest 3 per cent, and easily outpaced a 2 per cent rise in wages.

“This year’s 9 per cent increase in premiums is especially painful for workers and employers struggling through a weak recovery,” said Drew Altman, Kaiser’s chief executive.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b649007e-e92e-11e0-af7b-00144feab49a.html

[Demeter]

1. Yeah, well, Reality is a Bitch

and it's not like he wasn't repeatedly told that this would happen.

[Bonobo]

2. It is the killer of America's future

I am a fairly successful entrepeneur and was earning a good wage. But $15,000/year AFTER taxes and not counting dental insurance was not affordable for my family of 5 -NOT if we were going to save for college.

So we left. To greener pastures. A country where those costs were affordable and my kids could have healthy teeth and a healthy life.

I wonder how many others have been forced to make that choice.

[wiggs]

3. This is ridiculous. It was predicted that health insurance

costs would skyrocket with or without new legislation. Where's the analysis which shows that costs would have gone up less without ACA?

[JVS]

4. That's what he gets for letting the insurance industry call the shots.

[BeyondGeography]

5. Like it's Obama's problem

And they'll just go down if he and his HCR went away.

[woo me with science]

6. You miss the point.

This corporate nightmare legislation was supposed to address the problem. That was the fucking point.

Instead of actually helping, they entrenched the corporate bloodsuckers into the system and mandated that we buy from them.

Some of us warned all along that this is what would happen.

[Scuba]

7. The HCR law appears to have been written to prove that government "can't do healthcare"...

Only Medicare for All will ever solve the healthcare dilemma in this country.

[dawg]

8. 9% isn't that bad.

There have been some years when my premiums shot up 20% or more. 9% is too high an increase, and it is not sustainable over time, but it is hadly the death knell it is being made out to be.

Insurance companies are going to gouge us as much as they can. They hope the gouging will sour the public on the ACA and lead to its eventual repeal, but if not, at least they get the money from gouging us.

[Tatiana]

9. This was predicted. That is why people were upset when the public option was abandoned.

There needs to be some incentive for the insurance companies to keep costs down. There isn't now, so they can just run wild with the prices and huge CEO/executive salaries.

[Lint Head]

10. It's the "cost of health insurance" . Insurance companies want more money.

Insurance companies are nothing but banks. Eliminate them and the cost of paying for health care instantly goes down. It's called math.
Doctors should make a living and hospitals should make enough money to operate but health care should not be 'for profit'

Medicare for all.

[FarLeftFist]

11. Doesn't kick in until 2014. Kinda weird to blame rising prices on something that hasn't fully begun.

[woo me with science]

14. Read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/business/28insure.html?_r=1

"...How much the new federal health care legislation pushed by President Obama is affecting rates remains a point of debate, with some consumer advocates and others suggesting that insurers have raised prices in anticipation of new rules that would, in 2012, require them to justify any increase of more than 10 percent.
....
The increases requested by Aetna, for example, range from 8.9 percent to 53.6 percent, while those from United Health Group/Oxford range from 13 percent to 34 percent, according to the State Insurance Department.

The state’s power to deny increases does not extend to rates for large employers....
....
Consumer advocates contend that the latest requests exceed any documented rise in costs, with some companies enjoying three years of record profits and paying millions of dollars in dividends and executive compensation.

[Vinca]

12. There is no competition in the insurance industry.

The anti-trust laws don't apply to them so they essentially all charge the same thing. Consumers have no choice. That's why we needed the public option. Premiums across the board would have gone down as insurers watched most people gravitate to the public option.

[Bandit]

13. Another thing to make Republicans Gleefull......

Republicans should be dancing in the streets with this "news" as it proves their strategy is working.... America is suffering "Big Time" and Republicans can put the blame on Obama and Democrats because Americans are a stupid people that don't know or want to know history.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

15. It doesn't fully take effect until 2014

so, how can anybody make any judgements about its effect on health insurance costs? The exchanges aren't up yet nor are people getting subsidies yet. Am I missing something? :shrug: