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2010-06-24 Home Front: Politix

Facing health insurance premium hikes, Obama administration eyes price controls

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Posted by Fred 2010-06-24 00:00|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 HHS has significant leverage over how states implement the reasonableness review in doling out $250 million in grants for its implementation. That is less than $1 per capita, when the total outlay for health insurance is on the order of several thousand dollars per capita per year.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-06-24 00:56|| 2010-06-24 00:56|| Front Page Top

#2 Proponents, meanwhile, say without strict controls, the design of the health care law will lead to dramatic premium spikes.

Funny, I don't remember the president saying this during the health care debate.

Insurance companies can only write insurance if they having the capital to support doing so. So, if you want more health insurance, don't you want to create conditions that favor capital flowing into the health insurance companies? Price controls do the opposite. But, hey, what do I know, I'm not the Lightbringer.

Posted by Matt 2010-06-24 07:55|| 2010-06-24 07:55|| Front Page Top

#3 price controls = Shortage.

Why not increase the number of doctors instead?

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2010-06-24 08:33|| 2010-06-24 08:33|| Front Page Top

#4 having = have PIMF

BP, that is the mystery in this whole thing. Kids are getting out of med school with $500G in debt and are now being told basically that they're government employees. How do you "bend the cost curve down" without increasing the supply of the service in question? Price controls will work for about a picosecond until the market adjusts.

Posted by Matt 2010-06-24 08:54|| 2010-06-24 08:54|| Front Page Top

#5 Price Controls ==> Shortages ==> Rationing ==> Death Panels

Funny how Obumbles omitted that little detail. Didn't someone else mention it?

Posted by CrazyFool 2010-06-24 08:56|| 2010-06-24 08:56|| Front Page Top

#6 I can only conclude Doctors have a very good lobbying agency.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2010-06-24 09:29|| 2010-06-24 09:29|| Front Page Top

#7 Why become a docter when a person could become a lawyer and argue/be employed forever to interpret the bill passed without being read.

The government wants price controls for insurance, but won't address their own price controls aka a budget? All I know is my insurance went up 30%, and there is only one thing which has changed since I subscribed. One thing. I will say it again, Sebelius does not make decisions she has only sold them.

If somebody wanted to have some fun, take the Sebelius speeches following the Greensburg tornado about how the feds should let go control of the National Guards so they are available to deal with state problems and apply that to Arizona et al.

Posted by swksvolFF 2010-06-24 12:06|| 2010-06-24 12:06|| Front Page Top

#8 Doctor, apologies.

Posted by swksvolFF 2010-06-24 12:07|| 2010-06-24 12:07|| Front Page Top

#9 How can you have price controls on a publicly traded company?
A company officer's fiduciary responsibility is to the stockholders, i.e. to make them as much money as is legally possible. If they can raise rates and offset increased expenses to do that.... wouldn't it be kind of, um, criminal not to?
These guys have put themselves between a rock and a hardcase. They thought they were going to make out like bandits, so they piled on the bandwagon towards the end. Now they are probably coming to the conclusion that they are going to take it up the pipe like the rest of us.

Posted by bigjim-CA 2010-06-24 12:54|| 2010-06-24 12:54|| Front Page Top

#10 How can you have price controls on a publicly traded company?
I don't know all the details, but state insurance regulators have been doing that for health insurance plans for many years now. They do have to consider whether or not the prices they permit/deny will support/destroy the financial viability of the insurance company.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-06-24 13:17|| 2010-06-24 13:17|| Front Page Top

#11 They do have to consider whether or not the prices they permit/deny will support/destroy the financial viability of the insurance company.

The road to single payer (i.e government) medical care is thus laid out.

Posted by ed 2010-06-24 13:19|| 2010-06-24 13:19|| Front Page Top

#12 I'm not saying this is bad, but when you extend child coverage to 26, ban denying pre-existing conditions, do away with maximum payout, etc etc, something has to give. The money to pay these increased benefits doesn't come from the tooth fairy. If the government had a program that only covered the difference for these additional benefits, to pay for them they would have raise taxes or print money.

What's next? Everyone deserves a credit card regardless of worthiness and there should be a limit on interest rates?

How about everyone deserves to own a house. Oops we tried that!

Why doesn't the government restrict the money paid to hospital worker unions like SEIU, after all don't they drive up healthcare cost? Oh, I forgot the Dems owe their soul to the unions.

Bottom line, price controls have consequences. Wage and price controls have terrible consequences. Keep it up Dems and we'll have a healthcare system manned by third world doctors and run by militant unions. Welcome to Britain.

Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2010-06-24 14:18|| 2010-06-24 14:18|| Front Page Top

#13 Its crazy, my guess is that my hike is a last ditch effort to make money, then close up shop. If it were a gas station before a hurrican would be taken to court, except in this case the court is the hurricane.

My last shopping trip, looking at dental coverage wife needs expensive procedure:
"How much?" : extra $100/month
"When does it take effect?" : Immediately
"Prier conditions?" : allowed
"Obligation?" : cancel anytime
"So what keeps me from getting dental, getting the procedure, then cancelling?" : nothing

..."how do they expect to stay in business?"

Posted by swksvolFF 2010-06-24 14:40|| 2010-06-24 14:40|| Front Page Top

#14 Wage and price controls have terrible consequences. I agree. But even without Health Care Deform, the US economy has been on the edge of a cliff for many months and this administration is incapable of appreciating that danger.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-06-24 14:42|| 2010-06-24 14:42|| Front Page Top

#15 "the US economy has been on the edge of a cliff for many months and this administration is incapable of appreciating that danger"

Wrong, Anguper. They know, and that's exactly where they want us. >:-(

(Actually, they want us over the cliff.)

Thieving lying bastards.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2010-06-24 15:15|| 2010-06-24 15:15|| Front Page Top

#16 ClowardPiven strategy

Which Columbia University did the "O" attend?Overwhelm the system and the people will demand you fix it.

"Cloward-Piven is a strategy for forcing political change through orchestrated crisis.

The strategy was first proposed in 1966 by Columbia University political scientists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven as a plan to bankrupt the welfare system and produce radical change. Sometimes known as the "crisis strategy" or the the "flood-the-rolls, bankrupt-the-cities strategy," the Cloward-Piven approach called for swamping the welfare rolls with new applicants - more than the system could bear. It was hoped that the resulting economic collapse would lead to political turmoil and ultimately socialism.

The National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), founded by African-American militant George Alvin Wiley, put the Cloward-Piven strategy to work in the streets. Its activities led directly to the welfare crisis that bankrupted New York City in 1975.

Veterans of NWRO went on to found the Living Wage Movement and the Voting Rights Movement, both of which rely on the Cloward-Piven strategy and both of which are spear-headed by the radical cult ACORN.

Both the Living Wage and Voting Rights movements depend heavily on financial support from George Soros's Open Society Institute."

Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2010-06-24 16:17|| 2010-06-24 16:17|| Front Page Top

#17 Explain why drug co-pays on my plan went from $18 to $50 after the med bill passed?
Oh, and why the premiums went up?
I can't believe the drug costs went up that much in these few months.

Posted by 3dc 2010-06-24 17:18|| 2010-06-24 17:18|| Front Page Top

#18 3dc

The same reason hospitals charge private patients $10 for an aspirin, it covers the cost of meeting government mandated prices/reimbursement. If you can't raise your premiums and you can't reduce your coverage you charge more for co-pays. The money has to come from somewhere.

Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2010-06-24 17:36|| 2010-06-24 17:36|| Front Page Top

#19 Precisely correct Devil Dog. Furthermore, insurance companies have already begun elevating premiums in anticipation of having to cover "pre-existing condition" applicants. Private medical insurance should be unafordable very soon, which only leaves the common man the Obama, gummit insurance solution. Barry loves it....when a plan comes together.

Posted by Besoeker 2010-06-24 17:41|| 2010-06-24 17:41|| Front Page Top

#20 My wife's hairdresser is from Afghanistan. She and her sisters brought their aged parents to the states and shortly thereafter the parents health went downhill. The father is on hemodialysis and the mother took ill and went into a coma and on life support. After 5 months the sisters finally agreed to pull the plug on the mother.

The parents never paid a dime into the system and all their treatment has been paid for by the taxpayers. In my business I see this type scenario repeated over and over again with no solution in sight. In Fremont CA immigrants are signed up for all the goodies by advocates before they find housing.

Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2010-06-24 19:00|| 2010-06-24 19:00|| Front Page Top

#21 Themoney to pay these increased benefits doesn't come from the tooth fairy.

I thought it came from Obama's stash.... silly me.

One of the reason that Aspirin costs $10 is that the hospital has to track each and every Aspirin. Lock them up, 'dispense' it (and only to qualified personal...). etc....

Posted by CrazyFool 2010-06-24 19:03|| 2010-06-24 19:03|| Front Page Top

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