06-03 15:33: RANsquawk Today's Trading Edge
It's official: years of warnings that Obamacare will lead to dramatic increases in healthcare premiums are about to be validated.
As the WSJ writes, big health plans stung by losses in the first few years of the U.S. health law’s implementation are seeking hefty premium increases for individual plans sold through insurance exchanges in more than a dozen states.
To be sure, we have extensively covered the imminent danger of rising healthcare prices as a result of Obamacare's intrusive intervention in the insurance sector; however now that this is about to become mainstream information, we expect consumers to hunker down and save even more in anticipation of what is about to be a shock price increase for millions of middle-class American families.
As the WSJ reports, the insurers’ proposed rates for individual coverage in states that have made their 2017 requests public largely bear out health plans’ grim predictions about their challenges under the health-care overhaul. According to the insurers’ filings with regulators, large plans in states including New York, Pennsylvania and Georgia are seeking to raise rates by 20% or more.
In states such as Florida and Maryland, insurers are seeking to raise premiums by percentage averages that are markedly above 10%. Among those that have published so far, only in Vermont do big insurers’ requests fall below 10%. Proposals still have to be approved by state regulators, and a full picture of final approved rates across the entire country likely won’t be known until shortly before HealthCare.gov and state equivalents reopen for the law’s fourth main enrollment window on Nov. 1.
Nonetheless, the proposed average increases that are available are a vivid indicator this year of how insurers are adapting to the 2010 Affordable Care Act’s transformation of the way health coverage is priced and sold in the U.S.
So for all those currently enrolled in healthcare plans administered in the following states, this is how much, on average, your plans will go up by.
The silver lining? Since this effective tax goes straight to "boosting US GDP", we look forward to a year of "above trendling" GDP growth thanks to this forced reallocation of consumers' disposable income into the infamous "healthcare" category.
Remember that scene in 'Cape Fear' where DeNiro's character laughs WAY too hard and WAY too long in the movie theatre? Like that.
Remember the scene in "The Deliverance" where Ned Beatty squeals like a pig? Also like that.
Remember when Nicholson came through the hotel door with an axe in 'The Shining'?
Also like that
Remember the scene where Thelma & Louise drove off the cliff.
Also like that....
This increase will largely only affect the most privileged demographics in the country, who can afford to pay more. Since the introduction of the ACA, the uninsured rate has declined by over 9% for African Americans, over 12% for Latinos and over 7% for women. The only people getting 'hit' by these small increases are white males, who already earn more and have more opportunities than everyone else. So suck it up - it's for a good cause.
"Change you can believe in!"
~ Soweto O'bama
If I claim to be a "refugee" from the medical system can I get free medical care?
Possibly, but if you can also claim to be 'gender fluid', then it will be a lock!
Heil Obamacare. YOU WILL pay your tax!
So these price increases simply make the unAffordable Healthcare Act more unaffordable. Same ole same old.
Pucker up, here comes a finger. Or maybe something a bit longer and thicker than a finger.
remember when obama was playing multi-dimensional chess and his opponents were playing checkers? when he was a genius and newly minted nobel laureate? when he had wide majorities in both houses of congress and positive approval ratings?
with a dozen examples of better health care systems spread universally across the rest of the advanced world this is what the boy wonder came up with.
On top of it all, United Health Care in North Caroina has been routinely denying charges. Happening to my family and friends, requiring multiple follow up phone calls and lengthy hold times before bills get paid. Also, they are denying pre-approved physical therapy.
If the schools stopped limiting enrollment and started cranking out doctors like every other major, soon we would have health faciliites as ubiquitous as fast food chains ...complete with daily specials and dollar menus.
Remember the scene in titanic when ship is perpendicular to the sea and underwater 65%, just like that.
No like this...a midget hooker going buck wild
https://youtu.be/9m3vKBftITwWe have a high deductible plan with BCBS of Florida. We have been pretty happy over the years with them actually. A year or so ago, our rate went up some 25%.
But this year it went up only about 1.3% !! Weird.
Is this before or after you saved the $2500 a year on premiums? /SARC
DOUBLE SILVER LINING... While healthcare (and all associated premium increases) represents 17% of GDP, it's weighted less than 5% in the CPi.
Win-win.
Well, at least Barry gave us, "If you want to keep your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance. I promise!"
Mine won't do shit, because I'm not paying it.
And remember that scene from Idiocracy? How many billions for an office visit?
It says here you're shit's all fucked up, and you talk like a fag.
Not directed at Nid, or anyone else in particualr (except maybe Lars Eirick Magwussen); in the same (sinking) boat...
I think there was a porn star who did 500/600 men. Houston 500? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_(actress) )
That should pretty much be sore for a while.
I'm hiring those same folks in Hawaii that Obama hired and re-doing my birth certificate to show I'm 65 so I can get Medicare. Even better, get them to do a Mexican citizenship so I get FREE health care, food stamps, free housing and a cell phone!
Phuck yes! That's what I call REAL change I can believe in!
like trading hot ashes for trees.
Welcome, tooo the machine
Thats just a movie of the Olympic sinking, Just like that.
Yes, perpendicular, Titanic going down, fuck those mother fuckers of the "Star Line" to Hell and back!
Hang 'em high!!!
On a strong lamp post or oak tree!!!
Doctors were plentiful intil the AMA came along and implemented licensing.
you mean a monopoly on narcotics and their legal distribution...and no wonder, they've been very responsible stewards therewith. doctors are so ethical...they merge in the minds of their patients' the concepts of vice and 'medicine', and then schedule doses that ensure addiction, and then compel each patient to schedule monthly visits to renew their 'medications'.
also, do you not wonder why hospitals stopped random drug screening for physicians? it's because over 25% were failing regularly. and you people insist that blue collar joe-sixpacks submit to screeings because he handles a weed-wacker; and yet, the man sawing on your cranium has enough demerol sloshing around his system to kill a horse. and while were at it, why don't elected officials receive random drug screenings and breath analyzers? talk about a position of public trust.
medicine is perhaps the most malevolent profession in amorica...that or its practitioners flat-out stupid. which is to say, they're either complicit or idiots.
fyi, avoid doctors at all costs -- unless, and only unless, you have a real physician that you know and trust. they're drug pushers, plain and simple...and their job is to fleece and cull the herd...but think what you want.
janus
I had that problem, so I cancelled Obamacare & joined a "legal" sharing ministry.
God he's got the jack! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI6pSkIs_tc&list=RDUI6pSkIs_tc#t=11
I had the exact same treatment from UNH here in NoVA last year, %Puppet. I did switch providers but it still cost me a few hundred bucks out of pocket, along with the deferred care. I don't do business on price and I don't mind them making a buck but I don't have time for this bullshit.
To be fair to Bammy, he had very little to do with drafting Bammycare.
Yes, and If you can afford a few hundred thousand dollars he will tell you about it after he leaves office. Lots of Health Care insurers will likely be doing that.
I recently watched an interview with him and half the time he looked like Harry Lennix school acting product , the black gentleman from Chicago, in charge and half the time he looked like OJ Simpson which propabably is his true underlying naturae once he looses that TV Lennix acting school shit.
Gentlemen, you've done elected yourselves an OJ clone to Prez....
Everyone seems to be missing the bigger picture. People don't want affordable health INSURANCE, they really want affordable health CARE. I'm all in favor of a single-payer system -- the patient.
Groups can do amazing things when their members have skin in the game.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
I'm actually in favor of single payer government catasstrophic coverage. Everybody pays in. Everybody has a deductible of $500 to $10,000 depending on income, after that is met, all costs are picked up by government. You either meet the deductible out of pocket or buy a supplemental to cover it. Mandatory physical and blood test once a year.
Sounds expensive. Although I am sure the government wont do anything with your lab results.
Oh, maybe if you have high cholesterol they can force a statin drug on you?
Then when you get diabetes from the statin drug, they can force another drug on you.
Man the list is endless when you are tyrannous.
pods
+100. End the Federal fuknut .gov NOW!
And if you vote Republican, they'll mandate you take daily thorazine/haldol.
I already do.
Remember the main job of a nurse is to keep the doctors from killing you.
Perhaps I wasn't clear. The only thing the government would be involved in is paying the bill after you met your deductible.
Guaranteed... "mandated vaccines" will morph into "mandated protocols". As things stand now, dotgov will get you eventually.
The Australian Government isn't doing anything bad with peoples health information... no... not at all. Unless you consider outsourcing cancer screening results (in the first stage) to the largest Telecommunications provider in the country "bad".
www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/election...
The Australian Government is so far ahead of the game in craziness, the rest of the Five Eyes Surveillance and Spies countries have got nothing on us.
Almost any single payer health insurance in any country is cheaper than what America has, and they ALL have better results. This red herring about "we can't afford that" is getting very old. What we can't afford is the overpriced American healthcare system.
Name a country with as many fat people as US! That's why health care in America is so expensive and we have worse life expectancy. There's no magic to having a monopoly in anything including healthcare. I don't want to pay for fat, lazy slobs and all their needed drugs. Not to mention all the lost work days. More competition in medical care-not more monopoly via .gov.
Personal responsibility-its not just for libertarians anymore!