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This editorial may take the award for Cluelessness of the Year. Almost every sentence reveals a complete lack of understanding of the issues and processes being discussed.
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When Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana recently pared back its planned health insurance premium increases from 65.4 percent to 58.4 percent after a state analysis found them to be too high, it begged an important question: If the company can get by with lower rate increases now, why was it demanding so much in the first place? (When you know you are entering a situation where negotiation will happen, do you go in with your bottom dollar offer and leave no room to negotiate, or do you come in higher so that you can compromise?)
And how much less could it gel by with and remain profitable? (BCBS of Montana is a non-profit company.)
State Auditor and Insurance Commissioner Monica Lindeen says the planned hike in premiums is still too large, and BCBS is challenging that. So be it. But the financial data the commissioner's office used in its analysis needs to be scrutinized carefully - by all of us. The only other two providers on the Montana Health Insurance Exchange are raising their rates by 30.7 percent and 27.6 percent
respectively - roughly half the increases that BCBS is planning. (This is what I mean by clueless. There are two other companies offering coverage on the Montana exchange, completely separate entities with different rating structures, loss experience, overhead, size of books of business, and operating structures. But somehow the Chronicle expects them to have similar outcomes. But if they did have similar outcomes, what would be the purpose of the Montana Health Insurance exchange? There would be no need for the market.
Further, are all three companies charging the exact same rates? If Company B charges 15% more than BCBS, then took a 30% rate increase, their rates would not be all that far out of line compared to BCBS, would they?
Moreover, back when Assurant dropped out of the Montana market, the Chronicle never wondered why all the companies didn't also drop out. That is, if they assume every company ought to have the same rate increase, then they also should assume every company should drop out of the exchange, right?)
Health insurers must suffer from some kind of memory deficit disorder. (It is ironic indeed that the Chronicle attempts to diagnose some sort of mental disorder when it is so unaware of its own.)
It was just a half dozen years ago that lawmakers in Washington debated cutting private companies out of the health insurance business altogether by establishing a singlepayer system - essentially Medicare for everyone. Through compromise the private companies are still providing the coverage under the Affordable Care Act, although they are required to meet certain coverage minimums. (Compromise? What? The ACA was rammed through Congress in the dead of night with no Republican amendments, no opposition input, and no Republican votes. The Democrats got exactly the bill they wanted.)
Exorbitant premiums are going to reignite that debate. And the singlepayer option is going to win more and more supporters as conservatives and liberals alike wake up to the fact that private health insurance in its current form is a millstone around our economic neck. (Actually, the debate that will reignite is the debate between government intervention and the free market. Free market types warned the ACA would fail, and it is. The solution is not to have even more government intervention, yet that's what the Chronicle wants. In other words, government failed with its ACA intervention, so they should for some reason intervene even more. It's irrational.)
Yes, a Single-payer system would mean more federal withholding from our paychecks. But it would lift the onus of $10,000-plus in annual premiums we pay for health insurance now - whether individually or through our employers. (Or so it is promised. But when has even one of these promises ever came true regarding costs of government programs? Remember Obama's infamous promise that the we would save $2500 a year on our health car premiums? Whatever happened to that?)
This editorial may take the award for Cluelessness of the Year. Almost every sentence reveals a complete lack of understanding of the issues and processes being discussed.
----------------
When Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana recently pared back its planned health insurance premium increases from 65.4 percent to 58.4 percent after a state analysis found them to be too high, it begged an important question: If the company can get by with lower rate increases now, why was it demanding so much in the first place? (When you know you are entering a situation where negotiation will happen, do you go in with your bottom dollar offer and leave no room to negotiate, or do you come in higher so that you can compromise?)
And how much less could it gel by with and remain profitable? (BCBS of Montana is a non-profit company.)
State Auditor and Insurance Commissioner Monica Lindeen says the planned hike in premiums is still too large, and BCBS is challenging that. So be it. But the financial data the commissioner's office used in its analysis needs to be scrutinized carefully - by all of us. The only other two providers on the Montana Health Insurance Exchange are raising their rates by 30.7 percent and 27.6 percent
respectively - roughly half the increases that BCBS is planning. (This is what I mean by clueless. There are two other companies offering coverage on the Montana exchange, completely separate entities with different rating structures, loss experience, overhead, size of books of business, and operating structures. But somehow the Chronicle expects them to have similar outcomes. But if they did have similar outcomes, what would be the purpose of the Montana Health Insurance exchange? There would be no need for the market.
Further, are all three companies charging the exact same rates? If Company B charges 15% more than BCBS, then took a 30% rate increase, their rates would not be all that far out of line compared to BCBS, would they?
Moreover, back when Assurant dropped out of the Montana market, the Chronicle never wondered why all the companies didn't also drop out. That is, if they assume every company ought to have the same rate increase, then they also should assume every company should drop out of the exchange, right?)
Health insurers must suffer from some kind of memory deficit disorder. (It is ironic indeed that the Chronicle attempts to diagnose some sort of mental disorder when it is so unaware of its own.)
It was just a half dozen years ago that lawmakers in Washington debated cutting private companies out of the health insurance business altogether by establishing a singlepayer system - essentially Medicare for everyone. Through compromise the private companies are still providing the coverage under the Affordable Care Act, although they are required to meet certain coverage minimums. (Compromise? What? The ACA was rammed through Congress in the dead of night with no Republican amendments, no opposition input, and no Republican votes. The Democrats got exactly the bill they wanted.)
Exorbitant premiums are going to reignite that debate. And the singlepayer option is going to win more and more supporters as conservatives and liberals alike wake up to the fact that private health insurance in its current form is a millstone around our economic neck. (Actually, the debate that will reignite is the debate between government intervention and the free market. Free market types warned the ACA would fail, and it is. The solution is not to have even more government intervention, yet that's what the Chronicle wants. In other words, government failed with its ACA intervention, so they should for some reason intervene even more. It's irrational.)
Yes, a Single-payer system would mean more federal withholding from our paychecks. But it would lift the onus of $10,000-plus in annual premiums we pay for health insurance now - whether individually or through our employers. (Or so it is promised. But when has even one of these promises ever came true regarding costs of government programs? Remember Obama's infamous promise that the we would save $2500 a year on our health car premiums? Whatever happened to that?)
Lindeen's office needs to make her analysis public along with explanations the layman can understand for why any rate increases are justified. Health insurance is no longer an option under the Affordable Care Act. It really never was for responsible individuals. So we have a right to maximum transparency in the process by which the premiums we pay are set.
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