Free Republic

Roosevelt Room 11:43 A.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. We’re meeting with the top executives of the health insurance companies, the biggest companies in our country — probably the biggest companies in our country, probably the biggest companies in the world. I can’t imagine being much bigger. But these are the great — the great health insurance companies. And I think tremendous progress is being made. They’re willing to do things for the people and their customers and probably, in a true sense, beyond their customers that normally I don’t think they’d be doing. And so I...

Top insurers began the trading day on Monday with losses on Wall Street after a federal judge ruled Friday afternoon that Obamacare is unconstitutional. Anthem's stock was down 2.62 percent to $268.37 per share in trading in New York. UnitedHealth Group was down 1.6 percent to $260.78, while Centene was down 7.94 percent to $117.40.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pulled out a surprise map during his town hall debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on CNN Tuesday night to make a point about the problems facing Obamacare. Cruz argued that in 70 percent of counties in America, consumers have a choice of one or two health insurance plans on the Obamacare exchanges.

After the Affordable Care Act took effect in 2010, it created a review mechanism intended to prevent exorbitant increases in health insurance rates by shaming companies that sought them. But this summer, insurers are turning that process on its head, using it to highlight the reasons they are losing money under the health care law and their case for raising premiums in 2017. That has ignited an election-year fight between insurers and consumers, who are complaining bitterly about the double-digit increases being sought across the country. The conflicts have been on vivid display at hearings in states like Pennsylvania, where...

I've just been notified by my long-term health care insurance program that they're increasing my monthly premium from $198 to $441 beginning in November due to "the severity of certain medical conditions, expected lifespans, returns on investment, and overall program expenses." The insurer is John Hancock Life & Health Insurance Company. I'll have to pay the full premium increase in order to keep my annual 5% benefit increase. Or I can pay "only" $318 per month and drop to a 3.9% annual benefit increase. Or I can retain the current premium and drop to a 2% annual benefit increase.

Expect insurers to seek significant premium increases under President Barack Obama's health care law, in a wave of state-level requests rippling across the country ahead of the political conventions this summer. Insurers say the law's coverage has been a financial drain for many of them, and they're setting the stage for 2017 hikes that in some cases could reach well into the double digits. For example in Virginia, nine insurers returning to the HealthCare.gov marketplace are seeking average premium increases that range from 9.4 percent to 37.1 percent. The health law's nagging problems seem to center on lower-than-hoped-for enrollment, sicker-than-expected...

On Tuesday, the largest private health insurance provider in the U.S., United Healthcare, announced that it would be pulling its plans out of the ObamaCare exchanges in all but a few states. Among a continuing string of bad news for President’ Obama’s Affordable Care Act, this one should stand out as an indicator that the ACA’s collapse is accelerating. Conservatives need to be ready to explain why and to present solutions, because advocates for fully socialized medicine will be ready to turn the collapsing exchanges to their advantage. All of the deficiencies in Obamacare’s structure have been well documented. High...

ObamaCare’s collapsing. UnitedHealth announced it will abandon most ObamaCare markets. Giant insurers like Aetna and the BlueCross Blue Shield Association are next. They warned last week losses trying to sell ObamaCare plans are “unsustainable” and they’ll either stop selling the plans or significantly raise premiums. Even Hillary Clinton’s campaign admits the cost of ObamaCare is “crushing.” Six years of ObamaCare have taught the nation lessons that Republicans should not ignore. Keep it short: Don’t give us another 2,572-page “comprehensive” health bill that lawmakers vote on without reading. What Congress passes, Congress must live by: Under Obamacare, members of Congress and...

Circumventing Congress's ban on the use of federal money to bail out ObamaCare casualties. I’m sure you’re all quite familiar with the Obama Administration’s proclivity for ignoring Congress and doing whatever it wants, whether that means refusing to enforce the law or attempting to shove gun control down the nation’s throat. But if you think Obama only does this via executive orders, you haven’t quite grasped the full scope of his lawlessness. Let’s say you want to spend money to bail out health insurers that you have driven to the brink of ruin by passing ObamaCare. But Congress (thanks in...

When Barack Obama was campaigning for the presidency in 2008 and when he was selling Obamacare to the public in 2010, he made insurance companies the villains. In fact, on the eve of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, every Democratic spokesperson who appeared on TV to support the health reform legislation had one and only one argument to make: We needed Obamacare to protect ordinary people from ruthless, profit mongering insurance companies. They said almost nothing about insuring the uninsured or controlling costs or making health care delivery more efficient. Instead, every advocate produced at least one example...

Former president Bill Clinton will be the keynote speaker at a conference of health-insurance executives this week. America's Health Insurance Plans, the largest health-insurance provider trade group in the country, is holding its Institute 2015 conference in Nashville this week. Clinton, whose wife Hillary is running for president, will close out the conference Friday afternoon with his address to attendees. "The session is open to Institute attendees (who have registered and paid for the entire Institute) and Friday only registrants," says the conference's website. "No press allowed."

Proposals set the stage for debate over federal health law’s impact. Major insurers in some states are proposing hefty rate boosts for plans sold under the federal health law, setting the stage for an intense debate this summer over the law’s impact. In New Mexico, market leader Health Care Service Corp. is asking for an average jump of 51.6% in premiums for 2016. The biggest insurer in Tennessee, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, has requested an average 36.3% increase. In Maryland, market leader CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield wants to raise rates 30.4% across its products. Moda Health, the largest insurer on the...

It didn't get much attention outside Capitol Hill, but late last week House Republican leaders scuttled a vote to repeal an ObamaCare bailout plan for major heath insurance companies if they lose money on new Affordable Care Act policies. Taxpayers could be on the hook for billions of dollars of payouts for ACA insurance policies that incur losses that exceed premiums collected. Despite pleas from conservatives to hold a vote to repeal the sham subsidy program to the biggest insurers — like Aetna (NYSE:AET), Cigna (NYSE:CI) and Humana (NYSE:HUM) — our sources tell us the House leadership reportedly said that...

A key former adviser behind President Obama's healthcare law said the traditional role of health insurers would be "dead" by 2025, predicting massive changes in the industry. "By 2025, insurance companies as we know them — taking in premiums and paying out — dead," Ezekiel Emanuel ... Emanuel, the older brother of former White House chief of staff and current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, has long argued that health insurers will shift away an employer-based system. By 2025.. ... Most Americans currently receive health insurance through their employers. ObamaCare includes an employer mandate, which requires companies with 50 or more...

With the results sure to affect politics as well as pocketbooks, health insurers are preparing to raise rates next year for plans issued under the Affordable Care Act. But how much depends on their ability to predict how newly enrolled customers — for whom little is known regarding health status and medical needs — will affect 2015 costs. “We’re working with about a third of the information that we usually have,” said Brian Lobley, senior vice president of marketing and consumer business at Pennsylvania’s Independence Blue Cross. The health law required insurers to accept all applicants this year for the...

Have you ever wondered why ObamaCare is burdened with so much complexity? Here's the answer: Barack Obama. Obama? Yes, the president himself. He campaigned on the promise that he would put partisanship aside and unite the country behind sensible answers to pressing problems. Then he didn't. How could that possibly have worked in health care? Easy. Obama could have adopted the approach taken by his 2008 opponent, John McCain. In fact we now know that Zeke Emanuel and others on the White House staff were urging him to do just that. Also, before he became the president's chief economic adviser,...

A multibillion-dollar tax that President Obama's health care law imposes on the insurance industry will be passed onto consumers, according to a new study by American Action Forum, costing individuals and families hundreds of dollars annually starting this year. As one way of financing the $2 trillion cost of expanding insurance coverage, Obamacare imposes a tax on the health insurance industry, which is assessed to each insurer based on their share of annual premiums collected by the industry. But according to the study by Robert Book of the center-right policy group American Action Forum, "insurers will have to pass most...

Consumers worried that tight deadlines around the holidays and lingering computer problems could thwart their efforts to secure coverage under President Barack Obama's health overhaul will get extra time to pay, the health insurance industry said Wednesday. The board of the industry's biggest trade group — America's Health Insurance Plans — said consumers who select a plan by Dec. 23 will now have until Jan. 10 to pay their first month's premium, instead of a previous New Year's Eve deadline set by the government.

Some Californians whose policies have been canceled are finding relief in a surprising place: from insurance companies that aren't offering plans on the new Covered California marketplace. Earlier this year, Aetna announced it would bow out of the state's individual market, effective Dec. 31. Cigna is staying, but isn't offering any products on the exchange. Right now, both companies are accepting new customers into pre-Affordable Care Act plans. Aetna plans are available to Costco members only until Dec. 15. Cigna is offering pre-ACA plans through Dec. 23. Anne Gonzales, a Covered California spokeswoman, confirmed that a carrier not offering plans...

Rep. Renee Ellmers raised awareness of a new problem with Obamacare’s implementation: the creation of private-sector health insurance monopolies that will limit Americans’ provider choices. The major health insurance company Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is closely coordinating with the White House on Obamacare implementation, will enjoy perhaps the greatest monopoly of all, the North Carolina Republican said in a statement. “Although seven insurance companies currently operate in North Carolina, under the new Obamacare exchanges, those options will dwindle down to one in the majority of counties,” Ellmers said Thursday following the disclosure of figures by federal health officials showing...