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Anthem Blue Cross Raises Premiums
Anthem Blue Cross customers got a shock this week when the health insurer informed thousands of individual policyholders that their premium rates will jump as much as 39 percent on March 1.
"There aren't any other parts of our society where people have no regard for inflation rate and increase their prices this much. I can't imagine anything in the world that's going up 39 percent," said Josh Libresco, 54, of San Rafael, as he grappled with the news that his family premium will go from $858 per month to $1,192 - and that's with a $5,000 deductible.
Anthem, which has reportedly sent letters this week to those who buy their coverage individually and are not covered by a group policy, said rising health care costs led to the increase.
The company, based in Woodland Hills (Los Angles County), declined to say how many customers received the increase or what the average premium hike was, but the insurer has the largest number of individual customers in the state. Last year, when Anthem Blue Cross raised rates by as much as 68 percent for some customers, the company said it had about 800,000 members.
The Department of Insurance plans to hire an actuarial firm to look into Anthem's "alarming" rate increases, said Darrel Ng, spokesman for the department.
Unlike home and automobile insurers, California insurers can legally raise rates for policyholders as much as and whenever they want. Regulators technically oversee the increases, but they have no power to control rates.
The most recent effort to require state regulators to approve health insurance rate increases, a bill by Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, failed to pass the Assembly Health Committee in April.
For Jeff Sher of San Francisco, who is both an independent health insurance agent and an Anthem customer, his 38 percent increase comes on top of a 41 percent increase last year. That means that in just a year, his premium increased from $273 to $530 per month, or 94 percent.
Sher, who is 59, said he hasn't needed to see a doctor in seven or eight years.
"It's all based on this illusion there is a free market in this product. But you can't shop for health care, particularly after you're already sick," he said. "You can't shop for a carrier because there is almost no competition."
95 Comments so far
Show AllAt least ya aint got that dang socialist medicine those other commies around the world have.
Yep, we couldn't be screwed so easily with socialized medicine and we surely love being screwed by those wonderful capitalists.
A while back I read an article where the author said that Health Insurance companies would eventually put themselves out of business. He reasoned this because of the need for ever increasing profits to make Wall Street happy they would continue to raise premiums, deductibles, co-pays, etc. until people came to the conclusion that buying their policies was no longer worth it, or they simply couldn't afford them anymore.
I wasn't sure how serious I should have taken his theory, but a 39% premium increase, $1200/month premium, and a $5000 deductible, may indicate that there is something to this guys argument.
Do the math. You are paying $14,400/year and a $5000 a year deductible. If you are paying that kind of money in premiums why not self insure. Put the $14,400 into a savings account. In 5 years you'll have $72,000 + Interest, in 10 years $144,000 + interest. To cover yourself against a car accident be sure to beef up the uninsured driver part of you policy. Aside from something catastrophic, that amount of money can cover a fair amount of medical treatments especially if you have them done offshore.
Just a little food for thought seeing .gov isn't going to do the right thing by us all.
I think more people are self-insuring, which is part of why they want government to mandate insurance. Also, going offshore for medical treatment is a growing trend. Unfortunately, just like anything else offshored, it weakens what remains of the domestic system. If hospital's customers are having non-emergency operations done abroad, it makes it that much harder for a hospital to provide emergency services. Congress, if they weren't face-first in the punch bowl, would address this before it becomes another national disaster. What are they going to do, mandate we buy an insurance rider to purchase emergency care in China? Maybe we could get a discount on our x-rays from TSA.
And, as others here have pointed out, the problem of paying payola to the insurance mafia harms the rest of the economy, from worker's wages to business's ability to compete. Hellloooo Congress! Anyone home?
Most private insurance is like Medicare and auto insurance then - mostly useful only for catastrophic/emergency situations. I wonder how many Americans actually get 'normal' routine medical/dental services? And even then, they have to be careful considering that the quality of our nation's care ranks 37th in the world!
The fact that 75% of Americans filing bankruptcy due to high medical costs believed they were adequately insured indicates that catastrophic coverage in America is at best illusory.
Insurance policies contain so many exculpatory clauses (I call them weasel clauses) that policyholders often don't know that their coverage is limited until the catastrophic medical bills are incurred.
This is the reason that the US is the only non-third world nation on earth where a majority of the middle class is one big medical bill away from losing everything they own.
"...they have to be careful considering that the quality of our nation's care ranks 37th in the world."
You are either being wilfully ignorant or don't understand the issue. US medical care is among the best anywhere in the world. The outcome and overall health of the population ranks 37th not because of the poor quality of medical care but because of the large number of people who do not avail themselves of this care for largely financial reasons.
"I wonder how many Americans actually get 'normal' routine medical/dental services?"
Probably nowhere near the number that should. Everyone over 45 should have an annual eye exam by an ophthalmologist for example. The retina shows early signs of many systemic diseases including diabetes.
Maybe folks will wake up and realize insurance companies are completely worthless, NHI is the only logical way to cut costs.
Yep - they add no value. They just create a thick useless layer of red tape and profit taking between the customer and the health care provider.
Joe
While jobs are being lost and wages are decreasing, health care premiums are increasing. If this deregulation get-rich-scheme is allowed to continue, health care premiums will take the bulk of our wages in the not-too-distant future.
"With the U.S-China trade deficit exploding, more job losses are forecast in the future. The Progressive Policy Institute, a moderate Democratic think tank aligned with the pro-free trade wing of the party, claims that unless the trade deficit is brought under control, 12 million information-based jobs in the U.S. are highly susceptible to outsourcing in the future."
...http://www.economyincrisis.org/content/lamy-expect-us-china-trade-disputes-increase...
What part of 8 million net jobs lost since December 2007 does our Congress still not understand?
Are they corporate-loving thugs or representatives "of the people"?
That's a trick question, right? Oh, rhetorical. Sorry.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who will guard the guardians, watch the watchers, etc?)
Hello Gail,
I hope that was retorical question but if not the the answer is not the second part.
Yet another nail in the coffin of the "American Dream".
Hello Washington! Is anybody up there listening??? Or do you not give a damn about the survival of the American taxpayer as long as you have yours? You are slaughtering the cash cow and you might go down next.
When the cash cow is gone you might even have to begin taxing corporations to keep your featherbed warm and cozy.
Only an enemy combatant would suggest taxing corporations, ahshap.
Why do you hate America?
Are you serious? Ahshap is commenting about the government. America is not the government, the people are. America is not the corporations, the people are. Furthermore disagreement with the government is not anti-american. Maybe a course in civics might be helpful.
Peace
I believe the comment by raydelcamino was using just a bit of sarcasm.
Your comment ought to be sent to congress and the white house.
Good one, ray!
*snicker snicker*
And if the Senate version passed and today were 2014, here are some things that could happen as a consequence of the 39% increase in insurance rates:
1) For some, they would be stuck with paying for all the increase because the legislation doesn't stop the insurance companies from gouging us.
2) For some, the increased premiums would raise your health care premiums to a Congressionally mandated arbitrary dollar level a "Cadillac Plan" whereas now your insurance policy will be taxed.
3) For some that receive a government tax credit, say 10% on their premiums, they would get a tax credit of perhaps 10% of the 39% increase, that is, they'd get 3.9% additional tax credit and have to pay the other 35-36%.
4) For some, they would raise their deductible (from $5,000) in this case, so they could get the premium dropped and avoid dropping their coverage and getting taxed by the IRS for not having insurance.
Thank you Democrats!
But OBAMACARE LAWS WOULD NOT ALLOW INSURERS TO DENY COVERAGE OR DROP COVERAGE as long as you are willing to submit to their government sanctioned extortion scheme.
>>>>>>...as he grappled with the news that his family premium will go from $858 per month to $1,192 - and that's with a $5,000 deductible.
My advice to this guy: drop his insurance; bank the $5,000 and the $13,000 annual premiums in a health account; use it for emergency visits to the hospital; bargain after treatment for a cut of 50% on the bill if it's paid in cash. And pray like hell that a devastating illness does not strike.
Right on, Joe!
How long would it take Congress to get the message if there were a national grassroots campaign to cancel health insurance policies?
If you live in a state like Massachusetts where you can be fined for not having health insurance, set up an escrow account as Joe has suggested and tell the government you are self-insured.
Let's stop playing the game until the rules are changed and the playing field is level.
"…And pray like hell that a devastating illness does not strike."
And we sit back and settle for this between a rock and a hard place crap.
My roommate, who works full time at a job that doesn't offer any kind of group coverage he can buy into, recently had a bit of a scare that landed him in the emergency room.
Working full time, and going to school working on his Masters took its toll, and his heart was freaking out on him. His emergency room visit which once he was seen was 20,000 dollars. We aren't talking emergency surgery here, but merely a battery of tests, after his heart was stabilized with drugs. Contrary to the myth that is propagated in the media that somehow hospitals are forced to just provide free health care, my roommate discovered just how difficult it is to negotiate down his debt.
He managed to negotiate down to 12,000 dollars for a few tests and critical care.
The guy in the example better not have anything happen worse than that for he and his family, or he's royally screwed.
$12,000 is still cheaper than paying for insurance, and your friend got treatment that no doubt would have been denied him by an insurance company anyway.
Jeevee
Have you ever considered going vegetarian or vegan, which would not only save you tons of money but would also benefit the planet. PLEASE DON'T STOP READING. There are not only a plethora of vegetarian recipes both in books and on the web, but you'll be pleasantly surprised how tasty and satisfying they can be.
There are also several alternatives to conventional MD-ism: Naturopathy, Acupuncture, wheatgrass juice therapy, macrobiotic, etc., etc. that can be remarkably EFFECTIVE AT A FRACTION OF THE COST OF ALLOPATHY.
Good luck!
My wife asked me to mention that going vegan is a great idea, however, she went into the market to get a little bunch of green onions and a cucumber for a salad. 10 tiny green onions $1.29, one cucumber $1.19 each. It costs a couple of bucks to buy a potato and God help you if you want a tomato. Also, everything in the market is wrapped and bunched up so you can't buy a single item. You usually have to buy way more than you can eat. If you do buy something individually, it costs two or three times as much per pound as buying the bag.
Obviously, the corporate personhood has figured out that many of us are switching to veggies, so that is being jacked up, too, along with health care premiums, gasoline, electricity, credit card interest, etc. These bastards don't intend to quit until we are all homeless serfs and they have it all.
We are in our 70's, living on a fixed pension that was just adequate in 1991. It is worth about half or less in purchasing power, now. It is getting close to scraping up road kill and walking the beaches for dead fish.
I read your contribution and understand very well what you and your wife face. It is not easy to get by these days. As you said ... the costs of everything just keep getting higher and higher. Health insurance costs are really a serious problem. We've become extremely frugal ... always trying to find ways to cut costs.
I don't know where you live but there must be some alternatives to going to the regular grocery/supermarket chains.
In the town where we live, we have several locally owned, small fruit and vegetable markets with prices significantly cheaper than either of the two regular grocery/supermarket chains. We can save 60 - 80% easily just on fruits and vegetables. Their eggs and milk are local and are also much cheaper.
We also have a discount grocery in town. It's the kind of market where you bag your own purchases. It's not fancy. No elaborate displays. Little to no advertising. They don't necessarily carry every brand all the time. Their fruits and vegetables can be very cheap. Their canned goods and dry goods are far cheaper than the regular grocery/supermarket chains. Oh ... they do not take coupons ... but it doesn't really matter because the savings are already so substantial.
We try to only shop at the regular grocery/supermarkets when they are running a special sale and we can use a coupon.
Day old bins and markdown bins are always possibilities. Most stores have them.
You can try having potluck lunches or suppers with family, friends, neighbors on a regular basis. Their really fun, save a lot of people a lot of money and you get to socialize.
There are a lot of things we don't even buy anymore. Funny thing is we don't even miss any of it.
Absurd pricing. Hospitals get revenue whenever they can because there is no rational and stable system of reimbursement, and because doctors, administrators and medical suppliers have adopted the rapacious mentality of the corporate world. The more charitable a hospital is, the better chance it will go under, like St. Vincent's and the Catholic hospitals here in New York, which have been closing or on the brink for decades. Publicly funded municipal hospitals fare a little better, although they are always near the chopping block.
We were with a friend in Europe when he needed care in an emergency room. 6 hours, many blood tests and EKG's later, the bill was approx. 230 Euros. That is for a non-citizen in a Private Hospital! In a public hospital, it would have been free. (Yes - they do allow private care in them socialist countries!) A friend working in a Mid-East country found there is NEVER a charge for emergency care.
In so mamy respects our country's culture has become arrogant, violent, heartless, low and boorish. It is run with a cold corporate mentality. Our people have become dull, tired, confused and compliant. Every disaster, personal, natural or economic, is an opportunity for bullying and extortion.
Learn, organize, resist.
Joe
"In so mamy respects our country's culture has become arrogant, violent, heartless, low and boorish. It is run with a cold corporate mentality. Our people have become dull, tired, confused and compliant. Every disaster, personal, natural or economic, is an opportunity for bullying and extortion."
You are just so absolutely correct. In just the last ten years the level of just cold mean cruelty in this country has obviously risen.
... and personal research re. "wellness".
Our exceptional American solution to health care. Wooh!!
Joe
And will this outrageous increase make Democrats go back to the drawing table this year? No.
Their attitude is, either you take what we and the insurance companies offered you last year or you get little or no reform. We are not interested in a public option that most Americans want.
My Obamabot co-workers tell me Obamacare is a "baby step TOWARD real health reform". If they bothered to look at the details they would realize Obamacare is actually three steps backwards.
Exactly. It is worse than nothing since it mandates Americans to have to be ripped off by insurance companies whose overriding interest is to make profits, not provide healthcare.
Take your reforms and...
It is all linked;deregulation started it then:greedy insurance co's + political enablers/assholes - jobs + (everything is medical emergency)+ pharma outragous prices - any recourse for people = A - life /pursuit of happiness but a race to an existance of less for more.Every day when I read CD there is a new crime,and that is what it is,perpetuated against the "flesh and blood" people by the SCOTUS enabled automatons and asshole politicians.It is bad now;what will it be like when Nov. rolls around?Tony
Single payer, single payer ,single payer, single payer single payer, single payer, single payer...
Singing to the wine.. There is no response...
YES, if medical treatment is still needed, YES to single payer.
Private health insurance is not worth having.
(State Farm dropped my "coverage" before I was even out of intensive care after quadruple bypass surgery.)
The most unfathomable part of all this is that the Democrats have produced a plan to subsidize these companies to expand their coverage, while the Republicans like the way things are the way they are. Meanwhile, you have tea partiers energized into protecting these very same companies! And the people with the simplest, logical, and all encompassing solution?? Completely ignored.
America is irrevocably screwed. I guess the choice is Barbarism over Socialism.
Barbarism we already have.
Is it time to get money out of politics yet?
Just an observation. The economic system in the US is based largely (if not eclusively) on extraction and exploitation of natural and human resources and will continue on so as long as there isn't any large scale protest and unrest to oppose it. In my experience people revolt (en masse) when the social and economic conditions leave tittle hope and poverty and hunger are rampant.
We are not there yet; this sytem will continue to squeeze out every possible drop of profit while people consume their bread and circus and try to make a living. One day, I do not know when, people will wake up and it "ain't gonna be pretty". Then you will see what a fascist government is capable of doing to its own citizens who do not fall in line. I have seen it happen in South America.
The fact right now is there is not enough critical mass, nor the conditions for this kind of spark to ignite. And yes, we try to change the system but is it postponing the real change needed? Change will come. I truly believe the american people will KNOW when that time will be and believe we're as strong and resilient to see this transformation through. Till then be strong and take care of your neighboor.
Peace
When the voters demand (writing, marching, sitting-in, striking) single-payer health care, then we will get it. The general voting public is allowing the Congress to do the lobbyists bidding, so we will get some version of Obamacare.
PURE RAW CAPITALISM. Gotta love it. The system like a gutted shark in a feeding frenzy, fiercely chomping it's own intestines for a quick meal. What happens when no one can pay the insurance? No more insurance company, no more insurance. More medicare cuts coming this year. Soon no doctors will accept medicare for payment. The Mayo clinic is no longer taking medicare patients. If the government can cut the amount they pay the doctors for medicare patients. The doctors can opt out of treating medicare patients. Capitalism works well in an infinite system. It gets pretty ugly when the system is finite.
Anthem must be able to make a lot of money from their Medi-care supplements, because they keep mailing me flyers that say call us! They don't actually quote prices and rates in their flyers...
Corporations are evil. The larger the corporation, the more evil it does...
Recently I purchased a Jitterbug cell phone and their minimum number of minutes. Unfortunately their little handbook is not explicit on haw to create entries in their Phone List, like how do you get letters besides A, D, G, J, M, P,T, and w? By experimenting, I finally stumbled onto the way to do it: depress the key two or three times...
Yesterday Jitterbug Corporation sent me a large mailing and claimed that now I was a "member of the Jitterbug family." Wrong, I am just a customer of a for-profit privately owned corporation. They even had the gall to ask me to put my own postage stamps on their advertizing post cards to tell others of the glories of corporate Jitterbug... Corporate greed is ugly...
Two recent items from my local newspaper:
AP: By 2012, between Medicare and Medicaid, the portion of total health care costs paid by government will pass the 50% mark. More boomers on Medicare, their parents sill alive, and expansion of Medicaid during the recession.
George Will: US health care costs put us at a disadvantage to China. Especially as costs increase rapidly as an individual ages. He called it investing in our past instead of our future. Death Panels endorsed by George Will jokes aside, there is only so much money in the economy for health care.
Part of the reason Medicare and Medicaid's portion of total health care costs will pass the 50% mark, are the greedy bastards in the Privately Run Medical Industrial Complex who scam both Medicare and Medicaid, and who artificially jack up the value of medical equipment and services, because they can. It's called a monopoly.
As per George Will's concern about any aspect of our economy being disadvantaged to China, I would ask, where the hell was George Will when all of the manufacturing jobs were sent to China? Before that event, supported by none other then Bill Clinton, at least there were still be people who could almost afford the over priced products of these greedy bastards.
How is it, that only in the United States, are there people like bbr, who are so blind to reality, that they end up being apologists for the few very powerful and wealthy people who couldn't care less for other people's health, but only their money.
Ask anyone in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, Japan, the UK, if they would trade their health care systems for the hell that faces Americans. They would have a hard time stopping laughing, at that prospect.
"there is only so much money in the economy for health care."
744 Billion Defense budget aside, right?
I didn't mean to apologize for anyone, just add something to the discussion. I don't think we should throw the elderly under the bus. The added trllions of defense spending are because Dick Cheney turned a criminal investigation into a war on Iraqi and Afghan civilians, and Obama wants to try and fix things before pulling out. Not to mention privatization to expensive contractors. Don't know where George was on NAFTA and China MFN, but they were mistakes. Especially China.
Mark Russell or maybe Rich Little, I forget, used to do a hilarious skit of Reagan presenting a budget with 3 halves to the "pie". Looks like we have 4 now.
The fact remains that health care costs and insurance costs are growing faster than anyone's salary or budget or savings or medicare can keep up with. Its a bigger problem than the insurance companies.
Almost forgot. A local hospital just declared bankruptcy. Mostly because of no compensation for ER and other services to uninsured patients.
"...who scam both Medicare and Medicaid..."
just one example... maybe... but to at least see the... "template"... of business built on healthcare...
while researching a company... that had a job positng... DAVita... provides dialysis centers... found out... dialysis is 100% medicare reimbursable... went to the company's website and some others... reading up on their officers' compensation... corporate structure... buyouts... DaVita is the largest provider of dialysis... people go in for their regular visits... and are attended to by staff... who hook up and run the machines... ok.. all well and good...
although this analysis is VERY non technical... i imagine the folks staffing the dialysis centers are hardly paid anything more than a minimum... and... probably very little if anything in benefits... throwaway staff...
but... the officers' stock holdings and net worths' was astounding... not quite the enormity of wall street "banks"... but... impressive to be sure...
health care is like water... sewer... electric... a public utility... and needs to be structured as such...
until the ideology... that EVERYTHING can be financialized... and "you too are one stock pick away from being the next warren buffet" mentality is let go by dumb ass "joe-the-plumber" trailer trash types carrying the banner for the wealthy elites who back fund all these corporatist in populist clothing front groups... were f***ed... 12TRILLION national debt folks...
take the estimated Federal Fiscal Year 2010-2011 Federal Government receipts... of approx. $2 Trillion... (for rounding)... if 25% of those receipts were used to pay down the debt... it would take 24 years to pay off the current federal debt... assuming no more debt was incured... AND we live off of less than 50% of what was proposed in this year's federal budget of $3.8 Trillion... (doesn't even account for accumulated interest of the principal balance year over year).
paying of the federal current debt... is mathematically impossible. period.
maybe the new credit card disclosure regulations about how long it takes to pay off the current balance or how much the monthly payment would have to be to pay off in 36 months... should be printed on every legislators' forehead...
let fox... cnn...et al... run THAT... as a "crawl" at the bottom of all their "breaking news" stories...