Governor Patrick has come to our rescue again. Instead of insurance premiums skyrocketing 22.6 percent, they will skyrocket 12.9%. WooooHooooo! Let me pull that 12.9 % premium increase right out of my 1.5% raise this year. I’ll pay that right after I pay the National Grid rate increase. Oops! After I pay my property tax increase! Uhhh, after the sales tax increase?
Thank Goodness everyone is pleased and thanked:
“We are pleased to be able to reach a settlement with Blue Cross Blue Shield that is good for everyone involved,” Insurance Commissioner Joseph G. Murphy said in a statement.
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“The economic emergency caused by increasing health care costs has deeply affected small businesses and working families, and we are pleased Blue Cross-Blue Shield worked with us on an immediate solution to ease that burden,” Barbara Anthony, a consumer affairs undersecretary, said in a statement.
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Gov. Deval L. Patrick thanked Blue Cross-Blue Shield and the other insurers who have agreed to rate increase deals. “Skyrocketing premium increases, year after year, are nothing short of an economic emergency and I am committed to working with all stakeholders – insurers and providers – to develop immediate and long term solutions,” he said.
This is eerily similar to the “pat Governor Patrick on the back” deal with National Grid. Corporation presents ridiculous rate increase; deal is reached for roughly half. Do they really think we don’t see through this? It’s a corporate/government game and the only people left holding the bag is the consumer.
12.9% is a skyrocketing rate increase. It’s probably what they were hoping for all along. Enough is enough. Do we want the working middle class to have discretionary dollars to spend or not. For many, this money will simply be pulled from the grocery budget, clothing budget and Christmas budget. People will go to the doctor less to avoid the co-pays and deductibles that they now won’t be able to afford because of the rate increase. BCBS currently charges $1446.28 per month premium for the silver plan ($1000. family deductible) for a family of three. A 12.9% rate increase on that plan is $187./ month. Whether or not the increase applies to that plan or not, I don’t know. The point is that this pulls huge sums of money out of our economy simply to pad the profits of corporations. They don’t need any more money. Our economy needs the money.
projecting huge real estate tax increases and then celebrating a simple $6 increase as if it were a “bump”.
… with other states or the national rate?
These have been huge, huge, increases, year after year, both before and after the Romneycare reform. (Which means that it cannot be entirely attributed to implementing that Reform.)
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p>And all during periods of very low inflation, and threats of deflation. Political yelping aside, I don’t think it can all be attributed to Charlie Baker’s paycheck. More politcal yelping about the evil profits of drug companies, but how much of this cost is driven by prescription costs? (For me, the $$$ prescriptions are usually disfavored, either outright (no Cialis for me) or by driving me to omeprazole instead of name-brand Nexium)
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p>What the heck is driving these costs?
I would highly recommend this report from AG Coakley’s office on health care cost drivers:
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=eo…
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p>This report (as have most unbiased researchers in this area) concluded that the growth in medical expenses accounts for most of the growth in health insurance premiums in recent years.
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p>”Medical expenses” (and the related price/utilization dynamic), in turn, are rising in MA primarily due to the fee-for-service payment system and the market power of Partner’s Health Care.
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p>The fee-for-service system rewards volume and use of high-cost technology even as it fails to incentivize prevention or effective chronic disease management. This is expensive and drives premium prices (along with cost-shifting from the privately insured to those with government-subsidized insurance).
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p>The “Partner’s effect” allows brand-name hospital systems to negotiate for ever-increasing payment from private insurers and to use their market power to gain volume at the expense of lower-cost hospitals/clinics.
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p>Meanwhile, spending on prescription drugs has grown much slower than average medical expenses/insurance premiums – due to increased use of generic pharmaceuticals over brand name drugs by most of us.
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Some bedtime reading…
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p>Partners is just the Longwood/Harvard provider network, right? In other words, a provider, not an insurer?
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p>I feel like I will never understand how this system works. If I am CMD Healh Insurance Co., why don’t I just set up a plan that discourages people from Longwood? $5 co-pay for UMass Medical, $50 for Longwood. I wonder if I would then be an evil insurance company that deprives people of the “best” care, available only on Longwood Ave.?
2009 cost by selected state of single per year, and family per year.
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p>New York $6,630 $13,296
Massachusetts $5,143 $13,288
Rhode Island $4,779 $11,107
Maine $4,061 $7,260
Connecticut $3,503 $8,477
New Hampshire $3,427 $7,672
Montana $3,305 $5,968
Nevada $3,276 $6,119
Virginia $3,229 $6,383
Georgia $3,228 $7,408
Oklahoma $3,220 $5,947
Texas $3,208 $6,459
South Carolina $3,204 $6,128
Florida $3,191 $6,527
Tennessee $3,150 $5,957
Minnesota $2,978 $7,013
Arizona $2,961 $5,292
Nebraska $2,950 $5,979
California $2,943 $6,567
Indiana $2,930 $6,236
Pennsylvania $2,873 $6,381
Illinois $2,843 $6,317
Colorado $2,777 $5,939
Kentucky $2,740 $5,980
Missouri $2,725 $5,657
Ohio $2,724 $5,701
Kansas $2,615 $5,529
North Carolina $2,613 $5,120
Iowa $2,606 $5,609