Credit where credit is due: Insurance premiums up thanks to ObamaCare
On Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services released a new rule requiring insurance companies who miss medical loss ratio targets – and are therefore required to credit policy holders – indicate ObamaCare is the reason why they are getting a credit.
Pure politics. The federal government restructures the rules to the point where some insurance companies will be required to credit some customers and those customers will be informed they got the rebate thanks to President Obama.
From Fox News, which points us over to a Wall Street Journal article that requires a subscription.
Under the 2010 legislation, insurers that don’t spend a specified amount of revenue on actual medical care — as opposed to administrative costs — must refund the difference to customers.
…
Rules finalized by the Department of Health and Human Services on Friday instruct insurers to notify recipients of rebates in the first paragraph of the mailing by writing: “This letter is to inform you that you will receive a rebate of a portion of your health insurance premiums. This rebate is required by the Affordable Care Act-the health reform law.”
Fine. I wonder what the federal government would do if health care insurers sent out a letter reminding customers premiums went up in great part thanks to President Obama and the federal government demanding…
- Insurance companies covering parents must provide coverage to “kids” up to the age of 26.
- Pre-existing conditions must be covered.
- The elimination of lifetime coverage limits.
- …
Certainly, those regulations (and there are many more) increased costs, so insurance companies should have the right to blame President Obama directly.
Politics rules the game here, and the Obama administration is trying to buy votes by having the rich evil health care insurance companies send a check directly to voters with Obama’s smiling face and a “thumbs-up” on the envelope. Democrats must be laughing their heads off, since they are playing you all for fools. Of course, that very public $72 average credit very few of you are going to get came after your health insurance premiums went up hundreds of dollars last year.
And that’s the politics of all of this. Liberal statists are setting up the rules so health care premiums go up – thanks to their regulations – and health insurance companies can be publicly blamed since that’s where the premium dollars go. At the same time they require rebates to end-consumers in certain situations where the federal government – by regulation – must be publicly recognized for the payment.
Corporations are bad, the federal government is good. The Democrats and the federal government want to control your lives. Control your healthcare. This is how they are doing it.
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Wait until? the “helpful” medical device tax kicks in.? From the WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304451104577387870788041912.html?mod=googlenews_wsj):
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“This tax is especially pernicious because it is assessed on sales, not profits. To put this in perspective, imagine that you’ve manufactured medical devices and had sales of $1 million, after all your costs and expenses?everything from materials and labor to research and development?your profit was $100,000. The excise tax would be $23,000, wiping out almost 25% of your profits”
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Can you say “move your manufacturing offshore” or “watch the prices skyrocket”?
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All AFTER the election, of course….
I am truly praying for SCOTUS to relieve us of the absurdity of Obamacare. But even they can’t save us totally.? I hope we all learn the lesson, that we need to undo the error made in ’09.
This would be a good policy for the State of Connecticut to make with respect to education; i.e., not give state money to school districts that don’t spend it on teaching. I have often wondered why it takes $220,000 of our tax dollars to teach a class of 20 students for 9 months. If a teacher gets $70,000 including benefits and $40,000 goes for the classroom’s share of the facility, equipment and upkeep, where does the other half go????!!!!!
The union.
Don’t forget the quarter million that the superintendent of schools gets — for what, I don’t know!
So, breaking it down, how much of that supposed $220,000 actually gets to each child in the classroom? In the Regime of Obama, change, spare change.
And then the kids get the word that they can’t go on a field trip because, you guessed it, there’s no money left!
You might ask why the new head of the UCONN Health Center is getting $750K per year plus percs (and his wife got hired too, coincidentally).? You know the Courant won’t…
Rates will really skyrocket once insurance companies are required to provide coverage up to age 30 for the children of all the married homosexual couples.
What a mess.? Mandates for all, nonsensical legislation and twisted?half-truths promulgated by an unelected?few (the lamestream media), all with the ultimate goal of forwarding socialism in the United States of America.
This another example of Obama Regime making itself look good by simply writing regulations. Who suffers as a result? We suffer and the insurance company raises its rates again!
What is the tipping point where we will not be able to pay any more taxes, fees, charges, etc?
Malloy finagled CT’s the largest tax hike in history — to payoff the unions –? and now he is back asking for new and increased taxes because there is a $200 million shortfall.
AAAARRRRRRRHHHHHH!
I am looking forward to insurance rates dropping to 2008 levels when Obamacare is declared unconstitutional.
Ha, Too ?easy Sammy. It will depend on whether Conservatives or Liberals control Congress to ??
Make a bill that will Lower the insurance rates. It ?would also help if Congress follows the Constitution And the suggestions of Paul Ryan!
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