Insurance rates in Indiana will increase 72 percent for those with individual plans and 8 percent for small group plans under President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul, according to the state’s insurance department.
The spike in costs is due primarily to new mandates under the law, which requires insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions and to offer a minimum level of benefits, said Logan Harrison, chief deputy commissioner with the Indiana Department of Insurance under Republican Gov. Mike Pence. New taxes and fees under the law also contributed, Harrison said.
“This new data regrettably confirms the negative impact of the Affordable Care Act on the insurance market in Indiana,” he said. “The Affordable Care Act requires many Hoosiers to purchase more comprehensive and more expensive health insurance than they may want or need. These rates call into question just how affordable health insurance will really be for many Hoosiers.”I'm not only angry with President Obama, I'm also angry at Gov. Mike Pence, who is doing absolutely nothing to stop this train wreck from happening other than to point fingers towards Washington. If he gave a damn about us, he would convene an emergency session of the General Assembly and come up with a plan to help figure out an affordable way for Hoosiers who don't have the luxury of getting insurance provided to them through their employment to obtain it. He's basically telling Hoosiers who have to purchase their own insurance that they can go screw themselves while he looks for more ways to lessen the tax burden for the top 1%.
What's clear is that the percentage of workers who get health insurance through their employers is going to continue to drop as more and more employers reduce hours or simply choose to no longer offer health insurance to their employees. The number of people holding part-time jobs in America is rising dramatically as the number with full-time jobs continues to fall. The bottom line is that there is no longer a bright economic future for most Americans. Declining wages, falling standards of living and more unemployment is what lies ahead for most Americans.
Gary: you believe The Star's reporting when it agrees with you (in this instance, for example) and not when it doesn't (such as the downtown/TIF subsidies you discuss in an earlier post.
ReplyDeleteEither The Star is accurate, or it is not (and I'm guessing the latter is far more common than the former).
This isn't the Star's spin; it's the Department of Insurance alerting the public what they are learning from the insurers they regulate concerning the rates they are planning to present. The Star is simply reporting the assertions made by the Department.
ReplyDeleteNow, the Star could have written that story to take the insurers to task, like Wellpoint, but as you and I both know, the Star seldom reports anything too negative about Wellpoint because of its status as a major employer in the community which has invested heavily in its downtown headquarters.
Congress must repeal ObamaCare!
ReplyDelete-and while they're at it, how about cutting off ObamaPhones, too!
Did The Star do its due diligence to check the accuracy of the information they received from the Department of Insurance?
ReplyDeleteOr is it as faulty as much of everything else spun out of state government?
And, CircleCityScribe, there have been countless failed votes to repeal ObamaCare. Ain't gonna happen.
ReplyDeleteAs for ObamaPhones, they're really ReaganPhones, you know. Been around since the Gipper was prez.
This was preordained, HIH. The Obama administration knew that the mandates of coverage for individual policies would cause an influx of new enrollees whose medical expenses would outpace the average cost of premiums substantially. Insurers are responding by exiting the individual health market, or by jacking rates so high that most people will be unable to afford the policies. The goal is to force people to rely on a government-subsidized plan. Instead of creating this train wreck, they may as well have gone the full distance and implemented a single payer system. Obamacare was set up to create chaos and pandemonium to pressure the naysayers into going along with a medical care system run entirely by the government. Conservatives lost. It's over. We're now officially a socialist country. We may as well realize that and lower our expectations and aspirations accordingly.
ReplyDeleteSooner rather than later, Democrats are going to run out of other people's money to spend.
ReplyDelete(See Detroit as example)
P. S. Hoosier in the Heartland, ObamaPhones were the product of Obama expanding lifeline service to his constituency of dependency. In case you didn't know it, when Ronald Reagan was in office, cell phones were not available to the public....they hadn't been made yet.
Universal Healthcare should have been considered back when the discussion on Health Care started. There are systems in Western Europe, Japan, and Canada that could have been studied.
ReplyDeleteThe Universal Health Care option never made it to the table. Instead we have the what is probably the most convoluted system on earth. It is the most expensive.
Health Care never should never have been tied in with employment.
When you subsidize a large amount of consumers for their health care and offer guaranteed coverage regardless of health conditions, prices will go up. A lot.
ReplyDeleteI knew this and so did most Americans. We needed a change to the system but not an overhaul.
most will lose their insurance from their employer by getting hours cut to part time. but even if you don't, your employer will most likely require you pay a percentage of it...20% is being floated around at my former company. people CANNOT afford this. wages are already too low...we can't carry this burden as well. no one wants socialized medicine anyway. fascists.
ReplyDeleteStretch your mind a bit and read what Sheila Kennedy has to say on the topic: More Horrors of Obamacare
ReplyDeleteCircleCityScribe: you need to do better fact checking.
ReplyDeleteYes, it was all landlines under Reagan, and was expanded to cellphones under George W. Bush.
And, no, , Obama did not "create a program to provide free cellphones to welfare recipients", according to Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/cellphone.asp
As for your other assertion: it's not the Democrats in Indianapolis who are profligate, it's the Republican mayor and councillors.