Posted on 06/21/2010 5:30:18 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. health insurers are raising prices by an average of 20 percent for adults age 64 and younger who buy their own policies, according to a survey released by a nonprofit healthcare group on Monday.
Such premium cost increases affected more than three-quarters of the 14 million adults who buy their own health plans and caused some to either seek a cheaper option with fewer benefits or switch insurers altogether, the Kaiser Family Foundation study showed.
The findings come as the Obama administration works with insurers to implement some of the new rules under the recently passed healthcare law, which aims to expand consumers' coverage while cracking down on discriminatory industry practices.
Although individual, or "nongroup," policies are a small slice of the health insurance industry, they have attracted sharp scrutiny in recent months amid reports of price increases as high as 39 percent.
...
"With people in the individual market being hit with average increases of 20 percent, the survey shows that the steep increases we have been reading about over the last several months are not just extreme cases," Kaiser Family Foundation Chief Executive Officer Drew Altman said in a statement.
While most working-age adults who have insurance get it through their employers, roughly 14 million people in the United States -- mostly small business owners or those whose companies don't offer insurance -- buy their own policies.
In comparison, 157 million adults under 65 have employer or "large group" policies, while roughly 45 million people 65 and older have coverage through the nation's Medicare program for the elderly and disabled.
Besides WellPoint, other health insurers include Aetna Inc, Cigna Corp, Humana Inc, UnitedHealth Group Inc, Health Net Inc, Amerigroup Corp and the Blue Cross Blue Shield network.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
September 23rd is the date that the first new changes to policies are to occur. Keeping the kids on longer, no pre-exes for them, and a few other things that make the actuarial risks higher, therefore more likely, therefore more expensive.
That's just the first changes, wait till after the first of the year when some more changes kick in. You'll be seeing alot more articles like this. The point is to make a product so expensive that by the time the exchanges are set up in 2014, people will be FLOCKING to them.
The only form of insurance I see after the next ten years are supplemental plans like Medicare supplements. You'll have coverage, but it will suck and you'll be forced to buy something else to cover all the gaps. We'll end up spending twice as much overall for the same comparable or worse healthcare than we have now.
Unless, of course, Doc McCoy shows up with his handy dandy tricorder and we can get them mass produced for $100 a unit in China.
Good! I hope more of this bad news hits these poor miserable bastards before the November elections. It is the only way the idiot public is going to wake up and see what the regime has in store for them. Bring it on.
even the union officials here are dissapointed and pissed at Obama for the TARP giveaway to his rich backers, they didn't even get thrown a bone or a little table scrap, there are thousands on the union local's out of work list since Obama took office with no light at the end of the tunnel.
Ours rose 30%. Our agent did a great presentation showing that 2/3s of the increase were directly related to Obamacare.
It ain’t like there aren’t a lot of infrastructure things needing fixing and building is the shame of it.
All this damn politicking and backroom dealings is screwing the whole darn thing up.. Waste Fraud Graft and Corruption Inc.
“Our agent did a great presentation showing that 2/3s of the increase were directly related to Obamacare.”
Oh, that can’t be! I distinctly remember President Obama telling us we’d all save $2500 under his health plan. Did those nasty Dems in Congress pull a bait-and-switch on him? He ought to kick their ass!
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