The Seattle Times is reporting:
State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler has rejected President Obama’s proposal to allow insurance companies to extend health insurance policies for people who have received notices that their policies will be cancelled at the end of the year.
Within two hours of President Obama’s news conference announcing the proposed administrative fix for Americans upset by their policy cancellations, Kreidler issued a statement rejecting the proposal.
“I understand that many people are upset by the notices they have recently received from their health plans and they may not need the new benefits [in the Affordable Care Act] today,” he said. “But I have serious concerns about how President Obama’s proposal would be implemented and more significantly, its potential impact on the overall stability of our health insurance market.”For those not following this story (and don't identify yourself, at risk of being named a nominee for the 2013 Geico Rock Award), the key phrase is this: "... its potential impact on the overall stability of our health insurance market."
That phrase alone will put terror in the heart of every state insurance commissioner. I can almost bet that not one state insurance commissioner is going to open this bag of worms.
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The 2014 rates were based on "x" percent of Americans signing up for ObamaCare, and an algorithm adjusting for "low-risk" enrollees and "high-risk" enrollees. The insurance companies bet on a good to excellent roll-out, based their premiums on those formulas and sent them to insurance commissioners to review and approve.
Now that the insurance companies have seen the incredibly bad roll-out, and the likelihood that only the "high-risk" will enroll, if they (the insurance companies) were allowed to have a "do-over," to re-set their premiums, they would raise those premiums. The state-run exchanges already know they will have a tough sell; they cannot "afford" to have premiums increased at all. [By the way, that's why the government military health care system, Tricare, has been helped by all this. For years, Congress and senior officers have stressed the need to increase the incredibly crazy, low premiums active duty and retirees pay for their insurance coverage (which, by the way, was exempt from ObamaCare -- I cannot make this stuff up); but now, there is no political stomach to consider raising anyone's insurance premiums, not even the military's.]
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For four years, this debate has been theoretical. Now it’s real. And for Democrats, it’s a disaster.
It begins with the bungled rollout. If Washington can’t even do the Web site — the literal portal to this brave new world — how does it propose to regulate the vast ecosystem of American medicine?
Beyond the competence issue is the arrogance. Five million freely chosen, freely purchased, freely renewed health-care plans are summarily canceled. Why? Because they don’t meet some arbitrary standard set by the experts in Washington.
For all his news conference gyrations about not deliberately deceiving people with his “if you like it” promise, the law Obama so triumphantly gave us allows you to keep your plan only if he likes it. This is life imitating comedy — that old line about a liberal being someone who doesn’t care what you do as long as it’s mandatory.
Lastly, deception. The essence of the entitlement state is government giving away free stuff. Hence Obamacare would provide insurance for 30 million uninsured, while giving everybody tons of free medical services — without adding “one dime to our deficits,” promised Obama.I think that's what middle America detests most: the arrogance and the deception. "Arrogance and Deception" -- sounds like the title of a book?
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