Question about the impact of the health care bill came up at a company meeting

The question was what impact it would have on our employer provided health insurance. The general manager said he did not know long term but it won't have an impact prior to Jan 1 2011 as our rates are locked in until then. He said he expected that premiums would probably increase double digits next year because "health insurance companies are being forced to insure people they would not otherwise and many of those people will bring high costs with them." He said he expected we would see increases every year going forward. He then stated that the federal government had realized cost savings in medicare by pushing the cost down to the states so we
will most likely be seeing state tax rates rise as result because this is essentially an unfunded mandate.

What do you think of his statements?

for one. The gov't is doing something, ergo it's going to get more expensive. As if that's the only reason.

He's forgetting that plenty of people who *aren't sick* and don't need care right now, will be in the pools for the first time since what the mid-80s? That will bring more revenue into the system than would be there without the law. (Doesn't mean that ins cos will not use it as an excuse for rate hikes, though.)

I would expect it to maybe not be cheaper, but at least hold the line for a while.

The cost savings or cost increases, are at this point speculative. I have not seen anything that points to one outcome or the other that I would consider solid. I think he may be right about the premium increases but it may not have anything to do with actual costs. I could see the ins. co's raising rates as much as possible over the next 3 years "in anticipation of higher costs going forward". If there are no REALIZED cost savings then I think states will have to raise tax rates to cover medicare costs. I just think it is too early to speculate on some of this.

any numbers right now are speculative.

Personally, I am waiting to see what the pools for uninsured and preexisting conditions are going to be set up for as far as rates. I understand those are supposed to be avialable starting in June. Even if I start working again. I don't want my healthcare tied to employment again.

The insurance companies are already paying this by virtue of high medical costs due to the uninsured. In other words, medical costs will go down because of reduced charity care.

Medical costs in total won't go up because of this law, but they will be shifted around.

And the growth of medicare costs will be slowed for the same reason.

Besides, 90% of the effects won't be seen for 3 years.

Mine went up 9% this last year alone because of this bill.

you will find that the insurer had increased the cost by double digits for the last 10 years. Perhaps your employer decided that your 'contribution' to the cost of insurance should be increased by 9% to offset the rising costs to him. Hard to see how a 9% increase 'last year' could be tied to HCR that hasn't even taken effect.

HR. Since you're working with an employer plan, pre-existing conditions doesn't factor at all into that plan. I would have asked him exactly how much the employer contribution had increased over the last decade.

Rates, deductibles and co-pays have gone up every year for the last 6 years. This year they jumped 35%.

huge premium increases in advance of HCR passing. Some states outlawed those requested increases.

So what did they blame the increase in premiums and increase in copays before the health care bill passed?

last five maybe.... i know for a fact that our insurance has increased every year for the past several years and now the insurance that was available to us before this year aren't even available and all we have offered to us through my husbands employer is UHC high deductible policy. The insurance would be going up regardless. They may try to make it sound like it's because of this new law, but the fact is that it's been going up.

and have shown no sign of slowing down. That more and more people are being forced out of the market because of these continuous price increases. Actually if the government is able to subsidize more people in the Health Insurance area that will leave the people with more money to spend on your employer's products.. Talk about short sighted....These people see their nose and think it is a mountain..

forcing more people out of the market, because they want to cherry pick only healthy people who will pay premiums and never file claims. They want to deny paying claims as much as possible. That's why the drop you if you make one or are diagnosed with a serious illness.

Don't want to piss of the manager :)

The CBO and obama admits that premiums will begin to rise but that we'll get tax breaks to counteract them (or something like that).

Best to just let the manager be wrong and make fun of him behind his back like the rest of us do.

- as insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite for pre-existing conditions. That inability will skew how they determine premium dollars for each risk. There will be an initial knee-jerk reaction to jack up rates to offset potential losses due to the inability to underwrite. It may level out over time but that's not going to happen for at least 10 years as the companies will need some type of claim history under the new guidelines to look at before reducing rates.

For some who will bring high costs with them others will not, offsetting the added cost to insurance co's.

Does your employer only offer one option as in one Insurance company to choose from?

We have a few choices in coverage but all from one insurer

Offering different plans to different employees only chops up the pool further. This customization of plans is a good incentive for charging you and your employer more because they have to spend more on overhead to hire administrators whose job it is to keep up with who's on what plan and what is or isn't allowed on that plan.

You won't pay for this because you don't need it. I won't pay for that because I won't need it. I think insurers should just offer one standard plan that offers the same bennies to everyone and charge everybody the same rate. I bet they would have more money. And your employer would have more incentive to go talk to more than one company.

I can certainly see where different coverages increase the administrative costs. Problem is most singles or couples without kids don't think they should have to pay the same amount as someone with 6 kids on the plan.

I'm never having kids and I say if you have 'em, you need to pay for some of the costs associated with them.

I'm all for a Medicare-for-all plan and I don't mind paying into a big pool but when it comes to private health insurance, there needs to be a rate for singles and a rate for families. The family plan could cover a couple with one kid or a single mom with three kids for the same price.

I have a choice between many companies, some non-profit HMO's, some for-profit.

For that guy in your company to make that statement he would need to know A LOT about that specific insurer to be even close to accurate. For example it is unlikely a bunch of new people are going to go on the rolls at said insurer. Even if they were it isn't like he would know. Not to mention the insurer itself wouldn't know because most people who do go to purchase on the exchange will have a choice, unlike you, on who they go with. So nothing is saying anyone will pick the one insurer you use. Prices may go down for your coverage.

That would have been my first question for this jackal.

Don

http://sbk.online.wsj.com/article/SB124476804026308603.html

In any case, I see the health insurance companies continuing to screw the country over until we have Medicare for All.

They will raise rates because it means more subsidies from the federal government. It's the perfect storm.

It started becoming a real cluster as companies went under or cut benefits everyone else experienced a cost increase.

Tell your boss to start supporting candidates who support Medicare for All. That will really save him money.

medicare is 100% federally funded. medicaid costs are what gets split with states and counties. or is that now changed? :shrug:

It probably was medicaid.

they should have given them different names.

I think not. And if he's trying to finesse his argument (as he is) by saying that many of the new people will be "high-risk" people, then what about the millions of young healthy low-risk people that will also be included?

Also, for argument's sake, let's assume for a minute that your boss is actually correct. Then, hasn't he just made an powerful argument AGAINST private insurance... by admitting that it really doesn't work for everyone?

That's what I think.

Those rates could increase by double-digits even if they did not need to increase. The insurance companies can legally collude.

Those people newly covered were covered anyway, and in the most expensive way that is: covered for the late in the game treatments that are extremely expensive.

When dropped from their insurance plan after losing jobs or dropped for pre-existing conditions, these people end on Medicare. Despite having the old, the dropped and the disabled, i.e. the most expensive of health care needy, Medicare functions on twice the 1.45% of salaries and yet covers those with trust funds who pay nothing.

Take a look at the last ten years. How much has it risen? 7-8% a year? 10-20% More? And, if it continues to rise, one is to blame the new bill just passed.

That's disingenuous. Had nothing been done, those rises certainly would have continued.

Will treating people sooner lower costs, will having them work rather than being on Medicare and Medicaid bring in enough, will the certainty of being paid, lower what doctors and hospitals have to charge, will covering everything lead to disband armies of clerks at insurance companies, hospitals and doctor's offices to lower the overall cost of delivering health care, will covering everyone lead to enough reduced costs of having gate keepers in front of every hospital and clinic...

I guess time will tell. But, had we continued, more and more Americans would do without health care including ourselves at this meeting to the end that no matter how poor the service and results are in Canada, Sweden, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Japan, and France to name a few, we'd be better off with a socialist system lest we, sitting here, die. None of those places want our system. And the idea that they come over here for our sixty year-old doctors who worked and learned here during our heyday won't last.

It is certainly possible that insurance costs will continue to rise just as it is possible they will fall. It is easy to timidly spread gloom and doom under the guise of conservatism.

Those other countries are doing well. They pay less. They pay less than half what we currently pay. They're all covered. They get more. We are not worse a people than they are. We deserve better than this for-shit system we have. We're just as good, we're just as able. We deserve as much if not more than they have. We're going to get a better system and it's not going to be because of some timid naysayers or do-nothings.