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Our insurance is raising quite a bit also, as is several of my friends and family members. My insurance agent told me it is directly due to ObamaCare.
Additionally, my friends in the healthcare industry all say this new healthcare reform will/is drastically increase costs. It is interesting to see the articles stating this is false?? I guess I believe more in actual rate increases in my own insurance policy and what the actual providers are showing me.
Overall, this reform needs to be repealed and fast. At the very least, it is unconstitutional to force healthcare on people - especially coming from the Government!
Your agent is lying to you. I work with Doctors on a daily basis and they say the opposite. So who should I trust...your insurance agent or a Doctor?
Funny, my company-supplied insurance remained the same with regards to cost, but the cap on lifetime benefits allowed was removed (per the new Health Care law).
However, my company is self-insured - there's no insurance company seeking to make a profit off of my health insurance.
Just a coincidence?
Mine also stayed the same. And, guess what, we are also self-insured. Funny coincidence that
I paid less for a colon operation 2 years ago in cash, than I did paying insurance premiums the prior year before. I could no longer afford the premiums along with the $5000 deductible. I could not afford the premiums and dropped all health insurance.
In 1990 my wife and I got our first insurance policy as her employer was dropping their insurance.
Premiums were $210 for only 9 months with a $370 yearly down payment and a $250 deductible. This was Blue Cross.
Within the year, I'd say 9 months our premiums shot up more than double, to $520.
Buy 1997, the year my daughter was born, our premiums were $980 with a $1000 deductible.
After my daughter was born, Premiums shot up to $1700. We raised the deductible to $5000(might as well not have insurance) which brought premiums down to $1200.
We have changed several insurance companies since, even back to Blue Cross.
In 2008 we could no longer afford the premiums, with the down turn in the economy and the lack of work for me in the flooring industry. No way I could afford $16,200 a year and a $5000 deductible.
I found out quickly, paying cash to doctors, was ¼-½ the cost to me, than paying premiums cost me.
Is it insurance?
Is it our government trying to control it all?
When there is nobody in between you and your doctor, cost come down dramatically.
Less people with their hand in there grabbing at the money, before the doctor sees it. FACT!
My doctors from my operation, all stay in touch with me monthly. Not their nurses aide, either.
I just know that I work for an insurance company...and we have to present reams of paper to justify a rate increase. It's not like they just want to buy a new jet for the CEO.
In any event, if they raise rates, this is a free market...people can change plans.
I just know that I work for an insurance company...and we have to present reams of paper to justify a rate increase. It's not like they just want to buy a new jet for the CEO.
In any event, if they raise rates, this is a free market...people can change plans.
What the point? Insurance mafia is an oligopoly. They ALL raise rates in tandem - the comsumers have no choice. Much like the utility industry.
Just out of curiosity, why are insurance companies yielding profit margins of between 5-10%?
I used to work for Blue Cross in Philly so I also knew their bottom line also.
You might know Blue Cross' bottom line, but do you know other insurance companies? Blue Cross is a not-for-profit company. Not all insurance companies are. Nor are all insurance company practices created equal. The national average on administrative costs is around 7% according to the Kaiser Foundation, but that number includes government payers as well, which operate at 2% administrative costs. In 2005,which is the most recent reliable data I can find at the moment (the trend is moving toward more government and less private reimbursement, but slowly, so this number probably is fairly accurate today), the government paid for 45.4% of total health care costs. That would put the average private insurer paying a little more than 11% toward administrative costs. Some will be more, some will be less. The number is driven down by the not-for-profits.
The percentage of profit margin, however, is not an argument against the fact the insurance companies want to increase what that percentage is worth. It is the nature of business, but it also means your premiums go up.
Minw went up and the co-pays and max went up alos ans it self insured. much of it depends if the comnay adopted the mandates to be grandfather under provivisons of the plan. Basically it just went up because of teh mandates causing more out flow as determined by acuturaies.Thins like the unlimted lifetime benefit and ahving to insure children upto to 26 years of age etc.The compnay cost also went up and they have had to creat a rust that they wil put millions in a year in order to not have it effect their ratings because of the liability from now to death of employees has changed. Most effected will be new hires because their terms of empoloyemnt can be changed.
You might know Blue Cross' bottom line, but do you know other insurance companies? Blue Cross is a not-for-profit company. Not all insurance companies are. Nor are all insurance company practices created equal. The national average on administrative costs is around 7% according to the Kaiser Foundation, but that number includes government payers as well, which operate at 2% administrative costs. In 2005,which is the most recent reliable data I can find at the moment (the trend is moving toward more government and less private reimbursement, but slowly, so this number probably is fairly accurate today), the government paid for 45.4% of total health care costs. That would put the average private insurer paying a little more than 11% toward administrative costs. Some will be more, some will be less. The number is driven down by the not-for-profits.
The percentage of profit margin, however, is not an argument against the fact the insurance companies want to increase what that percentage is worth. It is the nature of business, but it also means your premiums go up.
As I said earlier, my company health is self-insured. We pay approximately 5% of our premiums to a couple of well known insurance companies to administer our policies on our behalf.
When there is nobody in between you and your doctor, cost come down dramatically.
Less people with their hand in there grabbing at the money, before the doctor sees it. FACT!
My doctors from my operation, all stay in touch with me monthly. Not their nurses aide, either.
In general, I agree with this. Originally, insurance was simply hospital insurance. You paid for outpatient expenditures but your insurance company paid for your inpatient expenditures. Believe me, today it is not difficult to generate a $50,000 hospital bill. Most people couldn't pay that easily.
One of the big problems today is that the existence of insurance contributes to doctor's salaries. They charge more because they can get more. If we were to scrap the idea and just pay out of pocket for everything, we would need to have a discussion about doctors' fees. Does a particular doctor really need to be making $400,000 annually, or under a different market without insurance companies, would something closer to $200,000 be more appropriate? Regardless of whether or not doctors are overpaid, the current system makes your proposal cost-prohibitive for many at the moment. The AMA is a huge lobby, and doctors have no interest in getting rid of the middle man because it means they can charge more.
As I said earlier, my company health is self-insured. We pay approximately 5% of our premiums to a couple of well known insurance companies to administer our policies on our behalf.
Yes, this is one way insurance companies work that contributes to the overall 7% average.
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