Sens. Isakson and Perdue Cite Need for Obamacare Replacement
After an announcement last week that Blue Cross Blue Shield is seeking an average 40.6% increase in its exchange plan rates, U.S. Senators Johnny and David Perdue are calling for a replacement plan that will “give Americans affordable, accessible health care choices.”
According to a joint press release, the increases sought by Blue Cross and other carriers would be “on top of an average 106 percent premium increase for Georgia since 2013, the last year before Obamacare took effect, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.”
Sen. Iskason:
“Georgians are already hurting from the effects of Obamacare, and this news is further proof that this law is failing Georgians and all Americans who simply want an affordable health care system that meets their needs. I am eager to get to work on a system that would cover preexisting conditions, provide relief from costly mandates and regulations, and prioritize returning the oversight of individual markets to the states, which can then tailor insurance programs to best benefit their unique populations. It’s past time to bring back private competition, state regulation and authority and see to it that health care in America is accessible and affordable.”
Sen. Perdue:
“In Georgia, 96 out of 159 counties only have one insurance option in the Obamacare exchange and that’s Blue Cross. This rate hike means 60 percent of all Georgians who have Obamacare insurance are likely to see their health care costs increase dramatically next year. This is unmanageable. I have said it all along. Obamacare is collapsing under its own weight. This rate hike is further evidence that free-market solutions are needed now to increase competition, drive down costs, and increase choice in the individual market.”
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Is it too much to point out that the requirement to cover pre-existing conditions is one of those “costly mandates and regulations”? No, I don’t want to throw grandma off a cliff.
State regulation to date= Rubber-stamping any rate hike requests. Which requests and hikes have been going on as long as …
Not only are rates increasing when we were told they would go down now people on the exchanges have fewer and fewer choices. 40% fewer plans on the exchanges than last year.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/almost-40-percent-fewer-obamacare-insurers-sign-up-for-next-year/article/2628177
As I’ve said many times, I’m not happy with the status quo. You may be, but I am not.
I guess we can just allow things to continue to become even more affordable. Force more people on to Medicaid and just have the taxpayers pay for it.
There is definitely need for improvement one way or another. I struggle with having the option of those bare-bones plans, because when the unexpected occurs- and life offers up the unexpected every day- the folks with those plans will be uninsured, and uninsurable (especially if that 6-month waiting period for lack of continuous creditable coverage applies). The EHB requirement, while it raises premiums and redistributes that revenue to cover costs, at least addressed that issue. The argument for that kind of choice just reminds me of the argument that a resident shouldn’t have to pay property taxes for schools if they don’t have a child in the school. It’s a fantasy, ungrounded in the idea of community.
” just have the taxpayers pay for it.”
I think there’s only two choices- taxpayers pay for it or we don’t have it, and because of EMTALA we already “have” it. We just need to find a fair way to pay for it. Are you saying you have some Third Way? E, what do you think should happen when someone buys a crappy policy and then has a heart attack that isn’t covered?
“E, what do you think should happen when someone buys a crappy policy and then has a heart attack that isn’t covered?”
What do you say to that 60 year old woman who gets pregnant and doesn’t have coverage. Oh wait.
What do you say to that 42 year old woman that get prostate cancer. Oh wait.
What do you say to that 45 year old man that gets breast cancer. Oh wait.
What do you say to the unmarried 30 year old man that doesn’t want to get married or have a child. Oh wait.
We should stop treating everyone as if they have equal needs when in reality they don’t. Offering less coverage because you don’t need it doesn’t mean it’s a crappy plan.
So you know what you are going to need? I mean, do you think there should be any minimum coverages? If so, who decides and what are they? I think the theory is that if everybody pays for pregnancy coverage it would be really cheap. And why should only women pay for it anyway?
“I think the theory is that if everybody pays for pregnancy coverage it would be really cheap.” But that isn’t the case. Forcing people to buy coverage that covers everything has not driven down the costs of providing care. If it had insurance rates should drop along with the cost of care going down. Not increase by over 100% since 2013.
And no, not only women should pay for pregnancy coverage. My health insurance covered my wife’s pregnancy. But that is what we wanted. Why should a man who doesn’t want to have children or a 60 year old woman pay for something that they won’t use?
I suppose there’s lots of people who would just die because they didn’t have the right coverage, which saves us all some money……… But there are also a lot of people who would end up in the emergency room to get treatment, which we all pay for anyway.
“Speaking of your hypotheticals, you also know that the fact a 30 year old man doesn’t want to get married or have kids won’t necessarily prevent him from having kids.”
Wish I had read this last night before I was outside talking with my two gay neighbors. I’d explain to them that you think they are going to impregnate each other and should make sure they have health coverage for that. You know. Just in case.
“I don’t know how to explain to you the concept of caring about other people.”
Is this what caring for other people looks like? This is the road you want us all to go down.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/07/10/charlie-gard-terminally-ill-british-baby/464269001/
“Is this what caring for other people looks like?”
As far as I can tell that story has nothing to do with insurance.
“As far as I can tell that story has nothing to do with insurance.”
If we continue down the road we are heading to single payer then this is what you get. The government deciding what lives are worth saving. You may be okay with that. I am not.
One case about a child in Britain doesn’t mean that we can’t make it work differently here. Similarly, it’s ineffiicient to say we want to avoid this exceptional case, so let’s scrap the whole idea of community rating, or some similar extrapolation. No matter the system set up, there will be some person or ppl making decisions abt who gets what kind of treatment paid for, just as Benev mentioned. With plans that give you the option to be under-insured, the under-insured would go to ERs for treatment along with the uninsured. So, the default as we know it is high and maybe bankrupting debt for all those patients and the hospitals that treat them. I can’t imagine, E, that you’d be happy with that, either.
If the rates and cost of 7% of people on the exchanges is the issues, why are we cutting the supplements to help, why does the bill cut the Medicaid spending, which has nothing to do with the exchange market if the exchange is the issue? Why are we cutting taxes for the top level taxpayers on this, but not the middle class taxpayers – who pay a larger amount of their income on health care then the people getting the tax cut? Why is BCBS of Georgia raising rices based on exected use, while BCBS of North Carolina is raising their based on not being able to confirm if they will get the tax supplements?
My sibling is one of the people who did not renew his insurance this year, not because he doesn’t want it, but because he knows he’s not going to get a penalty for not having it, he’s going to get better and almost free health care in the future so why waste HIS money. I asked how he thought it would be better or free… ‘Because Trump said so…’
https://www.axios.com/blue-cross-blue-shield-of-georgia-wants-big-aca-rate-hike-2455031546.html
And this too…
https://www.axios.com/health-care-aca-in-context-2455036139.html
Don’t forget about selling insurance across state lines, amusing since there is no experience it works in any significant way, though it’s something else illustrating the Senators are all for states rights except when they’re not.
I’ll take the opportunity to say that many states already allow policies from others states, but the insurance companies don’t take them up on it. They design a policy with risk factors based on one region, and it wouldn’t be prudent to sell that policy to another region with different risk factors. Plenty of results on the google for this info.
The free market for medical care is a failure. It doesnt work. Thats why no other industrialized country in the world does it that way. The free market only has one goal
Profit…not outcomes…not to save lives…just to make money. So there is no incentive to provide good healthcare because it doesnt generate sufficient profit. The government (like in every other country) isnt motivated by the profit problem. They are more accountable to outcomes
They call that a market failure, btw