Getting Lucky
by digby
Consumers in at least four states who buy their own health insurance are getting hit with premium increases of 15 percent or more — and people in other states could see the same thing.
Anthem Blue Cross, a subsidiary of WellPoint Inc., has been under fire for a week from regulators and politicians for notifying some of its 800,000 individual policyholders in California that it plans to raise rates by up to 39 percent March 1.
The Anthem Blue Cross plan in Maine is asking for increases of about 23 percent this year for some individual policyholders. Last year, they raised rates up to 32 percent.
Kansas had one recent case where one insurer wanting to raise most individual rates 20 percent to 30 percent was persuaded by state insurance officials to reduce the increases to 10 percent to 20 percent. The insurance department would not identify the company but said it was not Anthem.
And in Oregon, multiple insurers were granted rate hikes of 15 percent or more this year after increases of around 25 percent last year for customers who purchase individual health insurance, rather than getting it through their employer.
Premiums are far more volatile for individual policies than for those bought by employers and other large groups, which have bargaining clout and a sizable pool of people among which to spread risk. As more people have lost jobs, many who are healthy have decided to go without health insurance or get a bare-bones, high-deductible policy, reducing the amount of premiums insurers receive.
Steep rate hikes in this sliver of the insurance market — about 13 million Americans, as of 2008 — have popped up sporadically for years. Experts see them becoming increasingly common.
That’s the unfortunate sliver I belong to. But it’s a pretty small sliver of the population, fortunately. Most people are covered by the government or their employers though their employers so as long as they keep their jobs, this isn’t a big worry for them, (yet).
The Republicans have a solution for people like me in the private health insurance market (besides, “don’t get sick or die quickly”). Remember this?
Think Progress caught a great exchange between GOP Representative and a couple of callers on the health care crisis. The first caller was a 60+ year old woman who worked in retail who was complaining that she couldn’t get health insurance because she has diabetes. Here’s Davis’ answer:
DAVIS: Well, Dorothy, let me, let me say a couple things. First of all, you know, I understand the dilemma you’re in. I don’t know if you’ll be able to retire at 62 or not. Frankly, I mean all of our 401Ks are down. I wish I could retire at 62. I think you’re going to find Americans working longer than they had originally anticipated, given the economic downturn and some of the economic realities.
If you can find a job with a major employer, they’re not going to be able to reject you under those cases. I don’t think you’ll find, probably be able to find some health insurance but if its with a small business or you’re going out on your own, it’s difficult at this point. There may be a government plan or private plans that are mandated coming out of this that are maybe able to help you. But diabetes, particularly adult onset, is controllable. If you watch your weight, if you exercise, watch what you eat and, you know, continue I guess in this case to take your medication. I don’t know any reason why you shouldn’t be able to find something out there, but you want to look for an employer that has a health care plan. Good luck.
[…]
CALLER: I’ll make, I’ll make my comment then I’ll get off the phone. Anyway, one of the things that I noticed this morning was Tom’s reaction to the woman who called looking for the job with health care and his final statement was “good luck,” which I think encapsulates the entire Republican party’s attitude towards any problems that are facing the American people today. I also have a master’s degree in economics.
HOST: Did you want to respond to Rick?
DAVIS: Well, congratulations on — well, I wish her good luck at this point. We’ll see what comes out of the health care plan. It wasn’t a “good luck, you’re on your own type of thing.” I think we all feel for people that are in those kinds of positions. But it’s very difficult. When you start having the government take care of everybody with a problem, as I said you’re doing it with borrowed money, what you want to see is — these are not simple solutions. It is progressive to continue to borrow money, to spend to take care of people’s problems. This tends to be a pretty inefficient way of doing things, number one. And number two, down the pike, somebody has to pay for it. I think I’m fairly progressive in my views as well. I was the head of a county government before I came to Washington and had to run it, inherited a pretty big deficit and was selected two years later, after making a number of changes, as the best financially-run county in the country.
So I look at governance as a very very tough business and I don’t think “good luck” was like a kiss off. I would generally say good luck to you as you try to move through this problem. But I don’t know that she can count on Washington to solve it for her. She will be eligible for Medicare in 3 years. And at that point, you can probably get some relief on some of the issues she’s looking for. She wanted to retire at 62 years old. We’d all like to retire at 62 years old, but I’m not so sure government can guarantee that people can just retire at 62 years old or that we should be doing those kind of things and maybe that’s where I part company with the caller.
She’s just got to try to stay alive for three years, which will take some luck if her diabetes goes untreated. But at that point,she really will be a lucky ducky if Paul Ryan has his way, though. She’s old enough to be able to count on Medicare when she’s 65. Everybody else had better hope they can persuade some generous large employer to keep them employed until they drop dead on the way to the coffee room. Otherwise, they’ll be shit out of luck if they get sick. Luckily, people over 60 rarely get sick, so it’s not a big problem.
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