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Aetna Pulls Out Of California Individual Insurance Market In Response To Obamacare
If Obamacare's stated goal was to broaden the health insurance market, give more options to consumers, and generally lower the cost of health insurance, courtesy of the IRS' flawless execution of yet another unprecedented government expansion, it may be in for a tough time. Because while on paper every statist plan of centrally-planned ambitions looks good, in reality things usually don't work out quite as expected. Case in point the news that Aetna will stop selling health insurance to individual consumers in California at the end of 2013, in advance of Obamacare's complete transformation of the insurance market: a transformation which just incidentally may see most private health insurance firms follow in Aetna's steps and the emergence of a single-payer system along the lines of the British National Health Service. A government-mandated and funded system which, needless to say, crushes private enterprise, and ends up costing far more for all involved than an efficient market based on individual wants, needs and capabilities constantly in flux.
But that's ok - there is an administration which is smarter than the entire market, and a Federal Reserve which will monetize any deficit funding, and the only trade off is making the already ridiculous US federal debt ridiculouser.
For more irony we go to the WSJ which informs us that that "pullout is likely to draw attention as California has become a focus of national debate over the law's impact. Supporters, including President Barack Obama, who highlighted the state in a recent speech, argue that it has shown the success of the health overhaul in encouraging competition and pushing down prices."
If in some parallel socialist universe, the exit of competitors ends up boosting competition, than yes, we agree. In this one, however, things are a little... different.
For now, Aetna is just the start. A relatively small start:
Aetna said it currently has about 49,000 individual policyholders in California. In 2011, when it had substantially bigger membership, it was the fourth-biggest player in the state's consumer market, with about 5.2% of the plans sold that year, according to a report from Citigroup Inc.
Aetna isn't one of the 13 insurers participating in the state's new consumer insurance marketplace set to launch this fall under the federal law. Like several other major national carriers, it has said it would join only a limited number of these exchanges. A carrier can still offer consumer plans without being in the exchange.
Aetna said it will continue selling health insurance in California to employers and Medicare beneficiaries, as well as dental and life-insurance products. The insurer said it is "fully committed to serving the needs of our 1.5 million members in the state." A company spokeswoman declined to comment about the reasons for Aetna's individual-business withdrawal.
As long as those members aren't on individual insurance: those members will have to find a different provider of insurance.
People who currently have Aetna individual health coverage will have to find plans with other carriers by year-end. That might be easier because of the federal health law's requirements that insurers no longer decline coverage or set premiums based on people's health history, but still, "it's going to be confusing" for Aetna policyholders, said Ken Fasola, chief executive of HealthMarkets Inc., parent of insurance agency Insphere Insurance Solutions. His firm plans to send written notice to affected clients, then follow up with calls and, if wanted, visits.
Aetna is just the first to crunch the numbers and realize that one indeed has to pass a law first to find out how much money will be lost - by private companies - as a result.
The health law is expected to expand the individual insurance business, but the new coverage rules will also mean major changes. Also, in the new exchanges, consumers are expected to focus closely on costs, particularly monthly premiums. Insurers may find it tough to compete if they don't have scale in a particular market, partly because they can't match the prices that competitors win from health-care providers.
As for the "model" assumptions behind Obamacare, it is likely too late to clarify that one does not get strong competition in an artificial marketplace in which the service providers are dropping out one by one.
The Obama administration has highlighted its expectation that the new health-insurance marketplaces will generally boast strong competition, with around 90% of consumers buying their own plans living in states where there would be products from at least five insurers.
But in at least some places, the offerings will be limited. In Washington state, for instance, nine insurers bid to sell plans in the individual market but only one carrier, Kaiser Permanente, bid to sell a small-business plan through the exchange in some counties, forcing Washington officials to cancel plans to run a full small-business exchange for the first year.
So instead of "strong competition" the end results was a government-enforced... monopoly. And guess who has all the pricing power in a monopoly.
Oh well, such is life under "central-planning" - the end result is always complete disaster, but at least the intentions to promote "fairness" were quite noble.
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It would be cheaper to cryonically suspend end of life patients than to treat them.
I thought I read somewhere that the British NHS costs half as much money per capita as the US private healthcare systems, and the people in Britain have a slighltly longer lifespan, on average, than Americans.
As Checkhov once wrote, Lawyers bankrupts their clients, Doctors bankrupt then kill their clients.
There are tons of variables that affect lifespan, not just health care. America has higher rates of murder, suicide, smoking, obesity, fatal accidents, etc. none of those are affected by health care/insurance and, other than murder, none of them are any of the government's damned business. If someone wants to chain smoke and stuff himself with Twinkies while watching TV all day, that's his decision and when he dies early it's his problem. Personal responsibility: the anti-drug.
The three (3) main drivers of cost in the US healthcare system are:
1) Fed Gov regulations
2) Liability costs
3) Wasted, fraud and abuse starting with the Fed Gov itself. Only $0.57 cents of every dollar the Fed Gov allocates leaves Washington DC (i'.e., exits the federal bureaucracy).
4) Competivness - Not being able to sell insurance nationally.
Isn't that 4?
Good point though... in Virginia, all docs pay into a fund to offset the malpractice insurance for OBGYNs. If they didn't, all the OBGYNs would leave the state. My doctor friends all want to know why they are paying the offset and not the lawyers who are driving the costs up and making all the money on bogus claims. Not a bad point, really.
The main driver of costs is the unsustainability of the health care system itself. And the administration costs of the education which must accompany new health standards. It won't get done in your life time, but it will get done.
Private insurance funded health care is NOT the same as a free enterpriise system... It is simply monopoly capitalism. Insurance companies add 30% beurocratic overhead, paying for monopolistically priced pharmaceuicals and Doctor's union pay scale.
The consumer has no real choice other than to not have health care (and Big Bro just closed that option through mandatory private insurance)...prices are held high by monopolistic profiteering. There is no incentive to find real cures for conditions...only to develop expensive therapies in a for profit sysrtem. Nor is their any incentive for prevention methods...they need you to get sick and linger as long as you have the resources to feed the beast.
Most of the big insurance companies are owned by the banks and they are as bankrupt as the banks. I'd think that too much influence from the pharmaceutical industrieis and too much cartel behaviour amongst doctors is the real problem.
Funny. the British NHS is such a mess, the PTB there want to privatize it.
The socalist Labour Party do not - and have never wanted - to privatise the NHS. After all, the NHS was their baby and they are very happy to keep pouring taxpayers' money into it forever and a day.
The NHS has become a sacred cow, which the Tories will never mention any word about privatisation as it's lost them more than one past election. So it struggles on bleeding taxpayers' money, delivering poor service.
" and the emergence of a single-payer system along the lines of the British National Health Service"
Er, Tyler - that's the target outcome. they can't do it outright, but when all the nasty, right wing extremist, capitalist insurance companies pull out, who is left? The federal government.
Question: Who is dumber? The people who voted for Obama and the Obamacare monster or Obama for thinking taking over 20% of the US economy by the government was a good idea?
The voters who did as they were told. Who did the telling? Union bosses and "community organizers" of course.
Around here (Baltimore outskirts) we have a black Neurosurgeon born into abject poverty telling people that the government needs to not only get out of healthcare business, but get out of the way altogether.
Even though this man raised a good family he still gets kicked off the podium last-minute and barrred from giving a commencement address to his own alma mater. Why? Because his political views didn't allign with what the university was preaching.
Such is the power of the collectivist hold.
"Efficient, market based health care?" Surrree. I guess $11 aspirin is proof the market is efficient. I hope private health care dies in screaming agony.
"Oh well, such is life under "central-planning" - the end result is always complete disaster, but at least the intentions to promote "fairness" were quite noble"
There was never an intention to promote fairness. The only intention was to create even bigger gubmint.
Who do we need more: doctors or health insurance CEOs? bankruptcy and dissolution of busness is part of capitalism.
49 states don't have Wall Street. Why not shut down Wall Street next?
When the IRS puts a gun to your head your health insurance is bound to improve. No wonder the government has ordered so many bullets. This will be the healthiest nation on earth starting 2014.
Pay up or we will take everything you own and you can go live under a bridge. Resist and we will shoot you.
P.S. Enjoy your new healthcare rights.
My wife broke her wrist mowing the neighbors lawn because he is an alone senior busy dying of cancer. Due to loss of a 20 year job due to the F'd economy we are without health insurance. It was a compound break requiring surgery and overnight stay in hospital. Total cost with a few office follow ups and the ER visit day of accident. 43K. She has five screws in her arm according to hospital billing that are 895.00 each. We were not screwed once but five times. Is the system fixable? I think not. Should a doctor work for free? I think not. Shoudd medical care be a for profit industry? You bet your ass. Or, you could have a house painter taking out your appendix. You pick. I discussed with my family doctor 3 years ago going to a cash only system and he was all ears. He said 30% of his expenses were insurance billing, coding, and collecting. There is a new business there. In a country the is now not much more than a house of cards becoming a house of regulations why start a new business at my age? You tell me. Everything is fixable if there is reward at the other end of your risk. Now, the reward has to include the hidden cost of supporting the beast. That now is the elephant in the room. When everyone is saying you can't you usually can.
The biggest mistake US made was having insurance to pay for everyday/run of the mill dr. visits and prescriptions. With auto insurance, which everyone has to own we don't file with our insurance to change the oil or rotate the tires. We use it when there is damage due to an accident. We decide if it's enough of a problem to use the insurance or pay out of pocket.
At one time Dr. visits for the common cold etc did not require insurance. Now too many go for a hang nail. Who actually benefitted from this change? Not the patient and not the doctor but Big Pharma and insurance companies. That change gave them ultimate control over our choices of Dr.'s, medications and procedures. Plus it allowed for the brainwashing of many. When I hear parrot's mimic that mantra "well the insurance company pays for it so they should be allowed to enforce such rules." Or "our rates would go down if there wasn't so much fraud".
Now you hear the the same brainwashed parrots state, in defense of the Bloomberg's of the world "Well the government is paying for the healthcare so they should ban sugary drinks".
When I hear people say that about insurance companies it's mindboggling. People need to get it out of their heads that the insurance companies "are paying for it". I guess those premiums we pay mean nothing. If they were the benevolent's some make them out to be how in the world do they make billions in profit every year? We are actually paying up front for what we may or may not ever need. We the people should actually be controlling them, not the other way around. The same will now be said for the government hijacking of healthcare.
First, stop the use of insurance for check ups and "cough and cold" visits. The amount of people that would stop going to the doctor for theses unneccesary visits would do wonders for the system. Plus the cut down on the over use of antibiotics and also cut down on the pushing of antidepressants by every doctor I've ever been to. Second ban Big Pharma, like was done for Big Tobacco, the damned commercial advertisement for the plethora of medications that cause more problems with the side affects than what the original problem was to begin with. That would stop with the self diagnosis and hypochondria of America along with cutting down on unnecessary cost incurred by Dr.'s and also subject the market place to competiton vs whatever convoluted, rigged system we have now that insures that the insurers and big pharma benefit exponentially more than the patient as well as the doctor.
In other words we need to move in the direct opposite direction than what we are. Doing the same thing time and time again expecting a different result and then adding steroids to the failed system is whatever step beyond insanity is.
sorry for poor proofreading before all the down arrows show up.
My wife, a hospital administrator, says this is huge. "I wish Blue Cross would do the same just to prove a point to California."
"Both parties are exactly the same"
I hear all this bullshit about costs and such whatever happened to value as a measure of cost. Sometimes cheap is cheap shit and sometimes it is value no one seems to distinguish or try to quanitfy that when they design or look at these things. Low cost isn't always good when value isn't there. But in this day and age that would require common sense something that all these educated number crunchers lack in spades.
Markets change and the bloated and uncompetitive contract or even disappear. Bloated Aetna leaving California is a sign of progress. With 13 other insurance companies competing, there is no reason to lament Aetna leaving the largest single market in the US. Instead, it is a reason to assess Aetna's long term viability.
You maybe right on that point but it is still about value. Remember that cheap insurance isn't so cheap when you have 2000 - 5000 dollar deductables on them before the insurance kicks in on the costs. That IS NOT affordable for the working poor or unemployed. Cheap doesn't always equate to value...........
Suits the hell out of me. Ins. Co.'s have been blood suckers the whole time. Fuck'm.
I agree the worse thing we could have done is to put our health and our pocketbooks in the hands of for-profit private monopolies.
During my chemotherapy for Lymphoma in the late 90's my insurance company balked at me getting Nupagen, which is a platelet booster, twice a month coinciding with my twice a month chemo regimen which was destroying my red blood count and causing me to delay treatment down to once a month....if that sometimes. <side note....Nupagen, once injected, causes a lot of pain as it forces the bone marrow to pump out red blood cells at an accelerated rate. It felt like my bones were on fire....teeth chattering pain sometimes>
My doc said without this drug the cancer would not only stabalize but would spread if my regimen could not keep a twice a month schedule. So....when the insurance company refused to pay for the $1000 a shot x twice a month, he called them up and asked them to calculate how much it would be to give me this shot for a year. Then calculate how much my family would sue them for after I died and it was discovered in court that they refused this drug.
And then he hung up on them.
5 minutes later it was approved.
And that was 1998. I'm still here......alive and kicking.....and cancer free. Screw the insurance companies. They tried to ration my health care in 1998...LONG before Obamacare or any <insert president name here>care.
You are going to be ruled and rationed by someone....it will be done 1 of 3 ways........private......public.....or a combination of the two (fascism).
Unplug your mind from the Matrix. It is not about left or right.....Democrat or Republican.....private or public....capitalism or socialism.
It's about the elites vs the people....the utopians vs the common man with common sense who wants to lead a simple, common life and be left alone to pursue his/her own local version of utopia without effecting anyone else's version.
The privatization of non-profit medicine was steamrolled by HMOs.
"If Obamacare's stated goal was to broaden the health insurance market, give more options to consumers, and generally lower the cost of health insurance, courtesy of the IRS' flawless execution of yet another unprecedented government expansion, it may be in for a tough time. Because while on paper every statist plan of centrally-planned ambitions looks good, in reality things usually don't work out quite as expected. Case in point the news that Aetna will stop selling health insurance to individual consumers in California at the end of 2013, in advance of Obamacare's complete transformation of the insurance market: a transformation which just incidentally may see most private health insurance firms follow in Aetna's steps and the emergence of a single-payer system along the lines of the British National Health Service"
This was absolutely planned from the first. This way when British Health Care comes to America Obama can "truthfully" say that he had nothing to do with a private decision by a private company. But since this will happen nationwide....then he will have the solution....being....roll-out the next phase of Obamacare which is total state-runned control.
I am too lazy this morning to find the article, but something like California premiums are expected to rise 64-300 % under Obummer Care. and if you know most Californians are already struggling. This is the blown transmission that will send some people over the edge.
Coming to a hospital near you:
"http://www.nbcnews.com/health/filth-neglect-british-hospital-fuel-uproar..."
And then there's Christian Science for the rest of us.
All insurance is a scam, and yes you can live without it!
If this article made any sense I could give ZH credit, but it does not and true to its form, it's 'par for the course', its full of code words such as 'socialist paradise.'
This is nothing more than yet another neo-conservative(Koch wing) propaganda piece: Aetna appears to be more than happy to ride the insurance gravy train that's employer and Medicare plans. It's stock price is at all-time-high.
Dear Cowardly Cocksucker......
Why use the term "neoconservative" when what youi really mean is JEW BASTARD WHO DOES NOT VOTE DEMOCRAT.......
Carry on.....
Those who refer to the medical systems in any of the Western world as "health care" are detached from reality. These systems are all more or less geared toward the perpetuation and maintenance (symptom-masking) of disease as opposed to prevention and cure. They are designed to produce life-long consumers of tests, pharmaceuticals and surgeries, so they should more properly be referred to as disease care systems. When it comes to the prevention and cure of chronic, degenerative diseases, doctors literally have no idea what they're doing. They do a tremendous amount of harm, in violation of their oath. As well-meaning as many are, they are merely technicians following a script based on a "community standard of care" (read do it just like everyone else) from polices set from up high by central planning wizards. Doctors are one of the leading causes of death in the Western world. The fact that I'm paying less for a piece of shit under a single-payer system is no cause for celebration.
Socialized medicine is a term that the insurance lobby created to cast this as marxist and against the American way of life. Universal care would mean a loss of profitability for the insurance companies. Insurance as a concept is inherently socialist. Insurance works by getting a collective of? people to put money in a common pool, and then certain people who need it get money from that pool.
We pay 2X the cost of the next westernized county on medicine, yet our healthcare is 31st in the world. Where does the money go then? To the pay of the executives in the health insurance companies. Average total cash compensation at health insurance companies for:
So the Obowel Movement lied???? And this is news, why?
I don't understand why people think of healthcare as a marketplace. It seems healthcare is more like the military or schools. It is a public good that you have to have which does not fit into the marketplace concept. Do we ask the military or the schools to turn a profit? No, we don't. We fund them with taxes, control costs and we have an accountability system in place to ensure they meet standards. We should do the same with healthcare.
People say they are afraid of death panels. Well we already have them. You have money and you live or you don't have money and you die. Best healthcare in the world if you are a millionaire of better. One of the worst healthcare systems in the developed world if you aren't a millionaire.
You will not get what you signed up for. The government does not care about you. You are better off with private enterprises that compete for your business. Whether the particular good or service you want is something you "have to have" is irrelevant. That includes schools. The military is different. See for example Richard Epstein on "public goods"
----The government does not care about you.----
My general experience with corporations is that they don't care about me either. As far as I can tell, healthcare corporations are only interested in how much money they can rip out of me in any way possible and it doesn't matter whether it is illegal or immoral. And from what I can see, our current private enterprises are doing a horrible job with healthcare even with so called "competition". Other nations seem to have much better healthcare at lower cost than our current private enterprise health system by providing national healthcare just as they provide for national defense and schooling.
If private enterprises are so much better at healthcare than national healthcare, why are our costs so much higher and the results so much poorer than other developed countries with national healthcare? It seems pretty clear we definitely have horrible healthcare right now with private enterprises running the show.
...corporations is that they don't care about me either...
Correct. Return to individual doctors running their own offices, treating individual patients who will go elsewhere if they don't like the services the doctor renders.
The truth is, people need to make their own decisions and accept the consequences whether good, bad or ugly. The doctor is nothing more than an advisor, period.
Which means, all drug laws must end. No drug, herb, substance can require a prescription to get and consume, otherwise we have tyranny, fraud, theft.
Return to free market or die.
Most will choose to die.
Humans are finished.
" A government-mandated and funded system which, needless to say, crushes private enterprise, and ends up costing far more for all involved than an efficient market based on individual wants, needs and capabilities constantly in flux."
Have you lost your mind? Government mandated systems which ALL 1st world countries have OTHER than the United States cost much, much less than the nonsense that is the US Sickcare System. Tests are not performed in US hospitals to diagnose or treat the patient, they are done primarily to bill the health insurance company or to put the patient into massive debt that will never, ever, be repaid, and then only secondly if something is found it might be treated.
What I find hilarious is the advertisement at the top of the page for Blue Cross Blue Shield WANTING people to sign up for Their health Plan for seniors. lmao, Blue Cross Blue Shield is hopping right on the Gov. train. If you can't beat them, join them. They ain't no dummies.
I have been a physician for over thirty years and I will tell you that the only solution to the health care crisis is prevention only.
Get the government and the corporations out, and return the system to individuals. Keep yourself as healthy as possible by exercising, eating well, and if necessary, avail yourself of relatively inexpensive treatment from individuals using natural remedies, and hope for the best!
Universal health care is much cheaper (in other countries) and sometimes is not so good. Our current health care system in the US is grossly overpriced and usually not so good. (Being a retired MD, I know all about its dirty little side streets all too well.) Problem is, with a corporate-directed, neofascist extranational government such as we have now, any switch to universal health care would simply be a cruel hoax that resulted in scam savings, even worse care, and even more centralization/less resilience. Real progress will only come when nation-states have decentralized and multinational corporations lose their stranglehold over powerful politicians who falsely claim to act in the best interest of large populations.
How is the departure of a Health INSURER bad here?
Doesn't this reallocate resources more efficiently, namely away from the inefficient premium collectors/claims deniers?
Health Insurers manage only the risk to the profits of its industry. Am I missing something benevolent these free loaders may bring to the table?
Good Riddance! Even if the totally corrupt US Government brought this about.
Then again, when one corrupt entity is replaced by another and people's access to health care does not improve, I guess I'll have my answer.
FUCK.
Californians voted this cockroach into office, now live with the consequences of your ignorance. Hope the rest of the insurers follow suit and your hospitals are overrun with illegals. Liberalism is indeed a mental disorder.
These greedy corps!!! Only a larger government can tackle these ever larger problems. I just hope the solar system is big enough for the obomba's expanding head.
It does appear that California will truly be the worker's state paradise that the commie dems have envisioned for it. All hail the obomba care. It is the holy grail.
Anyone who sees this as bad for Obamacare obviously never had Aetna. Obamacare is actually working perfectly here by shutting that scam down. It was marketed to low income workers as a low cost plan. It was like the pre-paid phone for healthcare. Employers would deduct $150 per paycheck or about $3500 per year, the employee would get a card to carry in their wallet, but claims were often denied or went towards a deductible and there was an annual cap of $5000. Approx 65% of people who file bankrupty due to medical bills have insurance like this. Good riddance Aetna, and all the other companies who were using annual caps to scam the working poor and raise the overall costs for every citizen.
Agree Nota, people are confused Health Benefit with Health Insurance which shall only cover catastrophic events. When we get rid of so call 'health insurances' let doctors compete, then patients win. I have been many doctors houses, they are ten times rich than their patients, so many loopholes in current system.
Aetna didn't even cover catastrophic events. They used Annual Caps to guarentee they assumed zero risk. Look up a guy called poopstrong he exposes the scam via social media after he was diagnosed with colon cancer. Annual premiums $3500, Annual Caps $5000, and the CEO makes more than that every hour. His gig is up thanks to Obamacare.
Dear Mr. Poopstrong,
I am writing on behalf of Seemore Butts concerning Mr. Hoo Flungpoo...
Sprighealth.com available in Oregon and Washington is a perfect example of what happens when you let doctors compete without insurance. A CT Scan can be purchased online with sprighealth for $250. The same scan will cost $900 at Kaiser Permanente. The same scan will cost $1400 if you have insurance and go to the same diagnostic center. The same scan will cost over $2500 if you have insurance and go to a hospital.
I have a very close friend in Budapest who is a dentist, -a very good one. How is it possible, that
US citicens travel twice to Budapest,
paying the Hotel,
paying the trips
paying the Doctor, and are still saving 40% of the costs they would have in the USA???
My american aunt is a nurse in California for 40 years. If she tells me, about the costs for surgery and treatments in the US, I can´t believe it.
So much more expensive than even in Germany. We have a public-private health system which works very well. If I need a surgery, I don´t pay a penny.
It is covered by the state insurance, which is nit covered by taxpayer money, but with memberdhip fees.
My neighbor need both his hip joints replaced. The cheapest he could find here was $55,000 apiece. He checked around and found that hip repelacement center in Thailand. For a total of $32,000, they flew him over, replaced both hips and flew him back after four weeks of post op care. He said the hospital was "nicer then the Ritz" and all the doctors spoke perfect English/British. Can you imagine what four weeks in the hospital would cost here?!
This may be the new trend especially for people with no insurance coverage or poor insurance coverage (like my neighbor) and the patient pays all cashola. I wish I had visited him whle he was there and made a detour to see Faber.
It would be nice if there were a doctor from Thailand reading ZH and could comment on this.
Glad to see the rhythm is still being used
Their is a tendency in Zerohedge, that claims, that "private" always works better. That is even nit true for Bankers and traders and all kind of other Junkies depending on free Central Bank money. Social does not mean inefficient. I have f.e. a beautiful garden in a village of gardens. All these gardens were in former times donated to train workers to plant some vegetables for the families. This system is working for a hundred years. This garden costs me 100 Euros per year, plus some extra working hours (30-40 per year) for the comunity. We sell fissh sandwiches at our local one time per ear village comunity party. The money goes to the garden comunity. Fish and sandwich material is paid by the comunity. The comunity does not make any profits. The money goes into the infrastructure (water a.s.o.).
So, why does noone take a look at countries with a working public health sector. Look at the scandinavian countries. Doctors earn a decent money. They have good life, but they are not sucking out their Clients. In 2008 all these Privatization followers should have gone bust.
Because a lot of people on here are idealogues and won't acknowledge that if you have 'privitization' of certain gov't-services especially on noncompete bids or in areas where there is no competition you often get the worst of both worlds. You get an uncompetitive market with a bloated cost structure and a private employer who does everything they can to run lean and likely cut the quality of the good/services they provide.
Fuck Aetna and the rest of these ghouls. Let them whine in the board room for not being able to gouge us for another 20% per year, because we are still breathing.
insurance interruptus, also known as the rejected insured, coverage interruptus, withdrawal or pull-out method, is a method of dumping policyholders in which an inurance company, during a coverage period withdraws its coverage from an insured prior to a health event.
What a disingeniousness article. Aetna only pulled out of th individual insurnace market. They still have a large number of covered lives in the Medicare and group Commerical markets in CA. Aetna pulled out because now that medical loss ratios are set, you have to guarantee coverage, and there is alot of uncertainty about pricing & just how sick the individuals will be how enroll on the exchanges initially no publicly-traded health insurer largely wants to touch them.
Gone are the days of the individual health insurance market when a health insurer could cherry-pick young and healthy individuals at a very nice profit margin, deny coverage to those with a preexisting condition, and do their damnest to try to rescind a policy for an individual who had a high-cost hospitalization or illness by proving they misrepresented or purposably omitted pieces of their medical history from the enrollment form.
In the first paragraph of this item, the sentence starting "A government mandated and funded....." is patently false, as a number of commentators have already stated. In the US, the current "free market" system is far and away the most expensive in the world. "Competition" has not begun to bring down costs, for the simple reason that the "consumer" is completely at the mercy of the various doctors, hospitals, drug and insurance companies, with no way of evaluating the value of the "services" offered. These "service" providers have enriched themselves immensely at the expense of the society as a whole. Government run health services are slow, inefficient and make errors in treatment, but at least they do not fleece the patient who is at the mercy of a single physician, who, when he makes mistakes is covered up by his collegues.