{"id":363396,"date":"2010-02-25T09:19:14","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T14:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.southernstudies.org,2010:\/\/5.12158"},"modified":"2010-03-03T14:45:20","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T19:45:20","slug":"rate-hike-blues-health-insurers-unleash-big-premium-increases-despite-record-profits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/363396","title":{"rendered":"RATE HIKE BLUES: Health insurers unleash big premium increases despite record profits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        <span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/WellPoint%20CEO%20Angely%20Braly.JPG\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"WellPoint CEO Angely Braly.JPG\" src=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/assets_c\/2010\/02\/WellPoint%20CEO%20Angely%20Braly-thumb-250x187.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 20px 20px; float: right;\" width=\"250\" height=\"187\" \/><\/a><\/span>Just as President Obama&#8217;s push for health reform was threatening to collapse, big insurance companies may have given Democrats just the ammunition they need to win &#8212; if they can capitalize on it.<\/p>\n<p><!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a class=\"addthis_button\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;username=xa-4b869b7c4030d914\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/v2\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js#username=xa-4b869b7c4030d914\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<p>In the wake of public outcry over <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/WN\/Politics\/anthem-blue-cross-owner-wellpoint-fire-lawmakers-insurance\/story?id=9931601\">WellPoint\/Anthem Blue Cross of California&#8217;s plan to jack up premiums by 39%<\/a> for over 1 million members &#8212; 10 times the rate of inflation &#8212; news is emerging of similar rate increases across the South and country, driving up costs to consumers as high as 70%.<\/p>\n<p>News reports show the premium hikes aren&#8217;t limited to any one state or insurance company:<\/p>\n<p><b>* GEORGIA:<\/b> The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ajc.com\/health\/controversy-builds-over-health-324478.html\">Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia pushed up rates on one man by 72%<\/a>. A BCBS-GA spokeswoman admits rates for many others are increasing up to 30%. WellPoint, a national insurer active in Georgia, jacked up premiums by 21% in 2009 and a similar increase is likely for 2010, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.americanprogressaction.org\/issues\/2010\/02\/pdf\/wellpoint.pdf\">a report released yesterday<\/a> [pdf] by the Center for American Progress.<br \/><b><br \/>* NORTH CAROLINA: <\/b>In North Carolina, the state Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliate &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsobserver.com\/2010\/02\/25\/357003\/rising-blue-cross-bills-stun-nc.html\">recently increased premiums 50 percent or more<\/a>&#8221; for some members, &#8220;forcing them to drop coverage or switch to cheaper plans with fewer<br \/>\nbenefits and higher deductibles,&#8221; according to the News &amp; Observer.<\/p>\n<p><b>* VIRGINIA: <\/b>WellPoint is planning to increase rates 7 to 15% this year, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.americanprogressaction.org\/issues\/2010\/02\/pdf\/wellpoint.pdf\">the CAP report<\/a>. [pdf]<\/p>\n<p>The reports are especially alarming given that &#8212; unlike other industries in the current recession &#8212; <b>WellPoint and other health insurers are enjoying record profits.<\/b> According to <a href=\"http:\/\/healthcareforamericanow.org\/criticalhelp\">a report released this week<\/a> [pdf] by Health Care for America Now:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Executives and shareholders of the five biggest for-profit health insurers, UnitedHealth<br \/>Group Inc., WellPoint Inc., Aetna Inc., Humana Inc., and Cigna Corp., enjoyed combined profit of $12.2 billion in 2009, up 56 percent from the previous year. It was the best year ever for Big Insurance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The pro-reform advocacy group goes on to say those profits were realized in part by &#8220;leaving<br \/>behind 2.7 million Americans who had been in private health plans.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Public outrage over the massive hikes would seem to be a boost to Obama and Democrats, who until now have seemed adept at snatching defeat out of the jaws of health reform victory.<\/p>\n<p>At a White House health care summit today, Obama will discuss his plan create a new agency to review &#8220;excessive&#8221; rate hikes by state insurers. Obama is also pushing a provision from the Senate health bill which would provide up to $250 million to states to beef up their review of rate increases.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Dallas Morning News, that would <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sharedcontent\/dws\/news\/nation\/stories\/DN-premiums_24bus.ART.State.Edition1.3cf48bd.html\">make a big difference in states like Texas<\/a> which don&#8217;t regularly review insurance rate increases. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, one of the state&#8217;s largest insurers, says it plans to increase premiums an average of 10% per customer in 2010.<\/p>\n<p><strong>UPDATE: HEALTH INSURANCE MONOPOLIES <\/p>\n<p><\/strong>The fact that insurance companies can dramatically increase rates without worrying too much about losing their customer base (and therefore long-term profits) is in part related to their near-monopoly control of the market in many states.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s received almost no press, but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ama-assn.org\/ama\/pub\/news\/news\/health-insurance-competition.shtml\">the American Medical Association released their latest report<\/a> on consolidation in the health industry this week. From the press release:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Competition in the health insurance industry is disappearing with<br \/>\nmore markets across the country dominated by one or two insurers [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><b>In 24 of the 43 states reported in the new AMA report, the two largest insurers had a combined market share of 70 percent or more.<\/b> Last year, just 18 of 42 states had two insurers with a combined market share of 70 percent or more.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The near total collapse of competitive and dynamic health insurance markets has not helped patients,&#8221; said AMA President J. James Rohack, M.D. &#8220;As demonstrated by proposed rate hikes in California and other states, health insurers have not shown greater efficiency and lower health care costs. Instead, <b>patient premiums, deductibles and co-payments have soared without an increase in benefits in these<br \/>\nincreasingly consolidated markets.&#8221;<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Which is exactly what proponents of the public option have been saying all along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just as President Obama&#8217;s push for health reform was threatening to collapse, big insurance companies may have given Democrats just the ammunition they need to win &#8212; if they can capitalize on it. In the wake of public outcry over WellPoint\/Anthem Blue Cross of California&#8217;s plan to jack up premiums by 39% for over 1 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4084,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-363396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4084"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}