How government regulation of health care can affect you

[karl]

ABC anchor Diane Sawyer, who in February demanded to know who will “keep insurance companies from jacking up premiums while making huge profits?”, on Friday found her champion in the Superintendent of Maine’s Bureau of Insurance, hailing Mila Kofman as a “super-cop” and a “gladiator” for rejecting a rate hike requested by Anthem Blue Cross.

Kofman turned down an 18 percent increase in premiums for individual policies, allowing “11 percent. Enough for Anthem to cover their rising costs, but not enough to make a profit."

The law in Maine forces insurance companies to cover anybody who applies, regardless of their health, but they don't have a mandate that everybody buys in. So there's not enough young people to carry the costs of those who need care.

The damage from regulations are even worse than that. As noted in a March 6 Maine Sunday Telegram article, the law mandates the same rates, regardless of risk, and has driven out of Maine all but two comapnies willing to sell policies to individuals:

Quote:

A 1993 Maine law made it almost impossible for insurance companies to turn down customers or drop them because they are sick. And it said that all customers also must be charged roughly the same rates, regardless of risk.

Gradually, nearly all of the smaller insurance companies stopped selling coverage in Maine and focused on other markets. Today, one other private insurer, MEGA Life and Health Insurance Co., offers individual insurance...

And some individual policy holders are getting a lot of expensive care. Four percent of Anthem's individual subscribers account for 80 percent of the dollars paid out in claims, according to company officials.

The rising costs, and the fact that healthy people have to pay the same premiums as sick people, has led many to simply stop paying premiums. The number of Anthem's individual subscribers has dropped from 30,000 to about 20,000 in the past decade.

And, because there is now a higher proportion of sick people in the policy pool, premiums have to go up faster than costs, said Daniel Corcoran, president of Anthem in Maine.

[Bravus]

You guys do understand the underlying concept of 'insurance', right?

[karl]

You guys do understand the underlying concept of 'insurance', right?

Yes - insurance is applied socialism. Only if one can choose his own insurance pool or opt out entirely is there any freedom in it. Once insurance is mandatory, that is de facto socialism for whatever the insurance covers.

[Dr. Rich]

And again karl, I totally agree with you on this one too!