Posted on 09/04/2014 5:19:49 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Syracuse, N.Y. -- Rate increases requested by health insurers offering "Obamacare" coverage through the New York's health insurance exchange have been cut by more than 50 percent.
The state Department of Financial Services said today insurers offering individual coverage on the exchange had asked for an average increase of 12.5 percent for 2015. The department reduced the average increase to 5.7 percent.
The state's action was praised by a consumer group and criticized by the insurance industry.
"This is great news for consumers and small employers alike," said Elisabeth Benjamin, a co-founder of Health Care for All New York, a coalition of consumer groups.
The New York Health Plan Association, which represents insurers, called the state's decision to significantly cut rate requests "irresponsible."
Paul Macielak, president and CEO of the association, said the state's rate decision " ... will create unnecessary turmoil in the market and will lead some plans to make business decisions that might include eliminating or reducing product offerings, withdrawing from regions or even withdrawing from the marketplace entirely."
(Excerpt) Read more at syracuse.com ...
The insurers will see more of this now that they made a deal with the devil. (government)
What it will ultimately result in is insurers bailing out of the networks.
Physicians everywhere are longer taking patients on Obamacare or Medicare. They can’t afford to and the hassle’s not worth it.
Gee, I wonder how many companies will be back there offering policies next year.
All talk.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-insurance-bailout-20140521-story.html#page=1
I wonder how high the deductibles will be. The provider lists will shrink, and they’re going to have a heck of a time enrolling specialists.
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- Thank you Chief Justice John Roberts
- You created an illegalunconstitutional additional federal income tax based on Communism
- Single seniors will have to pay for young welfare-sucking dropping babies from many different “Baby Daddies” like Jesse High-Jackson
- May those on the Supreme Court that backed this shiite soon meet a slow and painful end -
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This has been going on for years and years. The insurers ask the world and they get a lot less than they ask for.
Love the pure spin of the headline.
Obamacare rates will increase by 6% in 2015!
But they could have been 12% so let’s go with the headline of...
Obamacare rate increases cut by 50%
Low info approved.
As a normal person, I would simply ask the rhetorical question, which is unlikely to be answered by the twit Benjamin, or any other Obama-loving "consumer group:"
If the vast majority of workers (with or without a job) can't afford the previous premiums, AND DEDUCTIBLES, what difference does it make if the increase is 7.5 or 15%?
Bottom line... ADA or Obamacare still sucks!
I think you lost the word "no" somewhere in that sentence...
The piper to be paid—more doctors who leave the business—will be paid later.
Why didn’t they reduce the increase to 0%? Why not throw in free back rubs?
Yep that’s what I was thinking, the market cannot be overcome by state control.
http://lincolnparishnewsonline.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/obamacare-chickens-come-home-to-roost-lpsb/
Obamacare Chickens Come Home to Roost @ LPSB
By Walter Abbott
A provision of Obamacare that requires employees that work 30 or more hours a week to be “full-time” and eligible for medical coverage caused somewhat of a stir at last night’s meeting of the Lincoln Parish School Board (LPSB). It seems that in addition to the 828 or so full-time employees (teachers, staff, and support), the district has between 200 and 300 part-time employees – substitute teachers, para-professionals, cafeteria, maintenance, and other contract employees that are paid by the hour.
Effective January 1, 2015, any of those employees that work more than 30 hours/week will have to be offered medical coverage. That would cost the district about $2 million/year if all the part-time employees are enrolled, said David Charpentier, of Brown & Brown Insurance, a consultant who has advised the board in the past.
Said Charpentier, “You can offer coverage to these individuals on the same basis that you offer it to everybody else, and you would have to find another approximately $2 million per year in your budget to do that.” He added, “Or you could ignore the issue, and the government would, after you sent your reporting package in where you self report in January 2016, the government would send you a bill for a fine of about $2.7 million, for not having offered coverage to a sufficient number of your full-time employees, as defined by them.”
When the discussion centered around reducing the hours of the employees to less than 30 hours/week, and possibly increasing their hourly pay to compensate, District Eleven’s George Mack, Jr. sharply questioned that plan.
Said Mack, “Here in Lincoln, it’s a question of equity and fairness. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is the law of the land, is it not? So our objective is not to circumvent the law. That’s not what you’re trying to do, is it?” Mack went on, “How do we mitigate, how do we balance, taking care of people that we’re responsible for?”
Business Manager George Murphy noted that last year the board staff had begun to make plans to implement the reduced hours, but the Obamacare decree was delayed for a year.
Murphy said the plan was not an attempt to circumvent the law, but was in fact compliance.
Said Murphy, “Every time that we’ve talked about this, the words that we’ve used is were doing this is to comply with the law.” He added, “To me, circumventing the law is we know about the law, but we’re not going to do anything about it.”
Murphy noted that several years ago when sales tax receipts declined, several dozen full-time employee positions were eliminated and replaced with part-timers in order to stay solvent.
Charpentier noted that many companies in the private sector are going out of business, because the can’t afford to pay for the coverage.
As the discussion ebbed and flowed, it appeared that most all the board members were resigned to the reduced hours plan.
We’ll have more reporting later on the rest of the meeting.
Depends on whether the insurers were smart or not.
Smart would be expecting the rates to get cut, so asking for higher rates to start with. So say they wanted a 5% increase, asked for 12% and actually got 5.7%.
But thats if they were smart.
Scumbags. Still $150/month increase on my damn rates. # them!
>> “This is great news for consumers and small employers alike,” said Elisabeth Benjamin,
Like Hell it is, dumb ass. I’m now seeing an effective 17% insurance increase since Commie Care take effect last January.
All part of the plan to force a single payer government insurance by making it impossible for the private insurers to get the increases they need.
They will begin to withdraw from states that prevent them from making a profit.
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