Thursday, February 18, 2010

HHS warns of double-digit spike in health premiums

I want everyone who does not support health-care overhaul to read this and then thank themselves for helping keep the costs of my health insurance high for the last two decades, and are supporting politicians who will continue to keep costs high by preventing any reform from taking place. Thank you, guys! You're destroying my future!

6 comments:

Kevin Nishimoto said...

How can insurance companies expect to raise their prices right now? Hopefully this will force the government to come up with a reasonable policy.

Kevin said...

They raise their prices to deal with people getting kicked off of coverage because they can't afford it; in order to squeak out their (understandably meager) profits, they have to raise prices.

Kevin said...

TIME Magazine's take on Anthem's price hikes:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100219/us_time/08599196498800

Once again, thanks to all the conservatives who voted in a bunch of assholes keeping my health care nice and high.

Kevin said...

If not to belabor the point any further...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Premiums-jump-14-percent-on-apf-4075415555.html?x=0

Hassee said...

Kevin,
Your dislike of higher healthcare costs are understandable. However, you need to be sure that you are looking at the moral hazard costs of this problem. In case you weren't aware, 2/3 of Americans are overweight or obese! This is a major reason for rising premiums...it is not affordable for insurance companies to provide insurance at current premiums! Overweight and obesity causes many many health problems from high blood pressure, heart attacks, basic injuries, cancers, and dozens more. The costs of these problems are very high, and are major contributors to the rising costs of providing health care! People have no incentive at current prices to get healthy. I would advocate raising costs across the board and put pressures on people to get healthy or choose no coverage. People respond to incentives. Also, if you keep prices low or allow them to get lower, what incentives do people have to get healthy and keep healthcare costs down? None. I understand your problem with high costs of insurance, but you need to take a look at all sides and possibly why insurance companies are raising their costs (i.e. major moral hazard problems). Perhaps the solving of the obesity problem in america could start with insurance companies?!

Kevin said...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2005/mar/16/europeanunion.medicineandhealth

Perhaps.

Perhaps Europe's fat people store it in different places.

Perhaps we have a health-care system that has not been addressed for over sixty years.

It's hard to tell.