What Is Going to Happen After "Health Insurance Reform" Passes

GUEST COMMENT

NC-Tom September 16th, 2009 10:19 am
I'm just wondering out loud here. How long can the insurance companies continue to screw the American public and get away with it. 10 years, 20 years, 50 years? They continually increase premiums, while raising deductibles and co-pays. This will lead to more and more people that will be unable afford private insurance.

Are there actuaries that have already figured out the magic premium that they can charge over time which will maximize profits by weighing premiums against the number of customers they will lose by raising those premiums?

Or have they already begun to pass that point and this reform is meant to force more customers into the system so they can prop up this Ponzi scheme for another decade or two?

UNITY-PROGRESS COMMENTS
The last one is correct: "they already have begun to pass that point and this reform is meant to force more customers into the system so they can prop up this Ponzi scheme for another decade or two."

It's going to be a new bubble. Anyone with half a brain can see that like the other bubbles, this one won't last very long either. Eventually, assuming this insanity passes at all, it will unravel due to:

--More and more millions opting for the penalty, thus defeating the purpose and defeating whatever small benefits the new law would provide if almost everyone bought the insurance.

--More and more millions refusing to pay even the penalty, thus creating an unprecedented general tax compliance crisis.

--Horror stories of people who become homeless, sick, and/or dead despite having health insurance. (Can someone without a home address actually get a health insurance claim paid to them?? And for that matter, can they get a health insurance referral for health care if it is known they are homeless?)

--Medicaid will be overwhelmed to one extent or another

--Although there is confusion and uncertainty on the subject, it appears that Medicare also will be damaged by the new law. At the very least, it seems logical that Medicare would be damaged to one extent or another.

--Certain health insurance care networks will be overwhelmed, particularly those that attract those who have been going without health for years. Specifically, for those who choose the lowest cost plans that attract the most new enrollments, providers may not be available when needed. So for example, you need a doctor, but all the doctors in your plan are tied up for weeks, so you don't get to see one when you needed one.

And so on and so forth... Obviously, the common denominator for everything that will go wrong is that the prices (costs) are too high. That the prices are already too high, and that this root problem will only get worse, is obvious.

Simply put, the US economy can no longer afford to pay insurance executives, hospital executives, and many doctors millions of dollars each a year. The US economy is poorer than it used to be, and is not working the way it used to anymore. But with laws like this one, the rich people are trying to hold on to the past anyway they can.

The above was in response to this article on Common Dreams.