Okay… I’m still really pissed off at Patrick and his spineless response to the charter school issue as well as his non-efforts to address the Chapter 70 issue, but his campaign has finally put together an ad that hits to the core as to why no one in their right mind could or should vote a former healthcare CEO as guv…
– as someone who pays full whack for his family’s healthcare ($16,800/year) I can tell you that it approaches my mortgage payment and that’s just wrong. Health insurance companies are raping the public plain and simple and Baker was right in the thick of the action.
Please share widely!
Doesn’t MA have the highest premiums in the country? You want more of this?
My rates went up under Cellucci, Swift, Romney and Patrick — though now that I’m paying into the the Commonwealth Choice program, this is the first year my rates have NOT gone up.
Remember this legal decision last summer? The other appeals will be decided right after the election!
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p>That ad about ‘breathing room’ frosts me. Insurers don’t get to just raise premiums by throwing darts at a board – they have to document expenses, paid claims, etc., and fully justify ANY rate increase on an acturial basis, and the validity of that increase is decided by a Division of Insurance whose head is appointed by Patrick. BUT – he did this grandstanding, and when the state loses the appeal, the insureds may be on the hook for retroactive premiums.
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p>Think that can’t happen? Back in the 1980’s, the state decided to give some ‘breathing room’ to auto customers. Peerless Insurance, as it left the state, sued and Jim Shannon had the case. The accusation was that rates were being set for political, rather than acturial, reasons and the company won.
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p>Sooo…every auto registed in MA was assigned a $50 ‘remand’ penalty, regardless of make, model, or level of coverage. If you didn’t pay the remand, your policy was cancelled for non-payment. If you tried to re-write, a carrier couldn’t pick you up without written confirmation from the prior agent/carrier that you HAD paid the remand. Fun times for all. And it created a precedent for the collection of retroactive insurance premiums.
is that state government can be fixed by passing tax cuts, which will, in turn, cause cut backs in programs that will eliminate waste.
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p>But why doesn’t the same apply to health insurers? Yet a freeze on premium increases won’t have the same effect because…?
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p>(Bear in mind: Health insurance is the definition waste; it operates a protection racket skimming money off the top of the transaction between patients and health care providers with virtually no value added).
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I’d rather have high deductible policies with MSA’s.
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p>But Nooooo – we have to have HMO’s to tell us how to live. Ever notice how obesity has shot up on the watch of the HMO’s whose preventative care was going to bring about a health renaissance?
the HMOs are just as responsible for the surge in obesity as they are the decline of cigarette consumption…
They are all fee-for-service health insurance plans. The original HMO’s (Kaiser and Group Health Puget Sound, the old Harvard Community, and others) did/do have better outcomes and lower costs. They were/are integrated healthcare providers.
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p>When “health insurer” became a pejorative the insurers all morphed into “HMO’s”. Better branding. But Blue Cross is still Blue Cross, and still an insurance company. And they provide little preventive care.
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p>Your health and lifestyle decisions affect the insurer’s costs, and the premiums they charge. Just like accidents increase car insurer’s costs, things like speeding, drunk driving, and other bad driving habits that cause accidents increase the cost of car insurance. Your decisions have consequences for others.
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p>The insurance company wants you to diet and exercise, and drive safely, so they can profitably insure you and others.
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a PPO–Health New England–since 1988. They’ve been pretty good, and we have had some serious stuff to deal with.
The whole ‘please, mother, may I’ approach to going to the doctor, to the point where seeking coverage in an emergency or out of state can trigger a penalty. Ironically, sometines I have to ask my primary doctor to make an unnecessary referral to see a doctor within my PPO network because the HMO mentality is so entrenched and the doctor doesn’t want to risk penalty. A fine example of government regulated coverage.
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p>But I’d STILL rather have a plan from somebody like Guardian with a $2,000 deductible and a MSA with somebody like Benefit Strategies who give you a ‘credit card’ only good at doctor offices and pharmacies with a $2,000 cap. I’d pay out of pocket for flu and routine illness, and have INSURANCE for major illness and hospitalization. And enjoy lower premium insurance which in most years would more than cover the MSA expense.
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p>Do you have a $10 co-pay on your auto insurance? Can you imagine what your policy would cost if you DID?
I have a wife and three kids and a few thousand dollars just in co-pays. I don’t know how I’d do with an MSA.