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Audit of Health Care Bill Reveals Rising Premiums
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Meredith Jessup
Townhall
October 12, 2009
As the Senate Finance Committee prepares to vote on Chairman Max Baucus’ (D-M.T.) 10-year, $830 billion health care overhaul plan tomorrow, a new audit by private insurance companies sheds new light on its potential costs.
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Industry trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans have released a new study by PricewaterhouseCoopers that “projects the legislation would add $1,700 a year to the cost of family coverage in 2013, when most of the major provisions in the bill would be in effect.”
Premiums for a single person would go up by $600 more than would be the case without the legislation, the PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis concluded in the study commissioned by the insurance group.
“Several major provisions in the current legislative proposal will cause health care costs to increase far faster and higher than they would under the current system,” Karen Ignagni, the top industry lobbyist in Washington, wrote in a memo to insurance company CEOs.
The study projected that in 2019, family premiums could be $4,000 higher and individual premiums could be $1,500 higher.
Baucus’ spokesman, Scott Malhauser, contests the industry’s price study, calling it a “health insurance company hatchet job, plain and simple.”
Baucus spokesman Mulhauser said the study is “seriously flawed” because it doesn’t take into account provisions in the legislation that would lower the cost of coverage, such as tax credits to help people buy private insurance, protections for current policies and administrative savings from a revamped marketplace.
White House health care spokeswoman Linda Douglass concurred. “This is an insurance industry analysis that is designed to reach a conclusion which benefits the industry, and does not represent what the bill does,” she said.
The bill’s review from the Congressional Budget Office last week estimated it would cover 94% of eligible Americans and reduce the federal deficit. But the PwC study was specifically aimed at measuring the cost burden for privately insured individuals.
[The PwC study] concluded that a combination of factors in the bill – and decisions by lawmakers as they amended it – would raise costs.
The chief reason, said the report, is a decision by lawmakers to weaken proposed penalties for failing to get health insurance. The bill would require insurers to take all applicants, doing away with denials for pre-existing health problems. In return, all Americans would be required to carry coverage, either through an employer or a government program, or by buying it themselves.
But the CBO estimated that even with new federal subsidies, some 17 million Americans would still be unable to afford health insurance. Faced with that affordability problem, senators opted to ease the fines for going without coverage from the levels Baucus originally proposed. The industry says that will only let people postpone getting coverage until they get sick.
Other factors leading to higher costs include a new tax on high-cost health insurance plans, cuts in Medicare payments to hospitals and doctors, and a series of new taxes on insurers and other health care industries, the report said.
“Health reform could have a significant impact on the cost of private health insurance coverage,” it concluded.
Insurers played a major role in defeating then-President Bill Clinton’s health care plan in the 1990s. Sunday, the industry stopped short of signaling all-out opposition. “We will continue to work with policymakers in support of workable bipartisan reform,” Ignagni said in her memo.
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October 12th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I heard yesterday they changed the penalty from not buying Healthcare would go down from 2,500 dollars to a mere 750$ .
Sounds better right pay less for something you dont want or need.
Im not paying any penalty
free me Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 11:13 am
THE “HEALTH CARE BILL” IS THE …
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THE “PATRIOT ACT” IS THE “TOTAL TYRANNY ACT”
October 12th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Thank you myLords and Ladies for bring down the cost on a penalty for forced death…healthcare.
Grovel, grovel, grovel…(licking jackboots)
October 12th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Just a thought.
Could it be possible that this healthcare bill when passed, yes passed, will eventually get so expensive that regular people will not be able to afford it, then for commiting such a crime agains humanity, be placed in a FEAM Camp???
mark Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Hey, Check this out. Even the regular people can take control of their OWN health care! Tell others! WE don’t need the “big pharm” anymore!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plWC7r0vg0M
oldnamvet Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
I WANT THE SAME HEALTH,DENTAL,EYESIGHT PLAN THE BASTARDS IN CONGRESS AND SENATE GET AND I WANT IT FREE JUST LIKE THEM,GEE THAT MAKES ME A COMMUNIST FOR WE MUST LOVE THE BIG GOVT.I WANT THEM NOT TO GET A LIFETIME PENSION FOR WORKING A FEW YRS IN GOVT TOO,LET EM COME DOWN TO FLA AND DO ROOFING JOBS IN THE HEAT FOR THEIR DAILY MEALS.Just dreamen sorry all.
FACTS Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 12:21 am
oldnamvet – Those fuckers in Congress are HYPOCRITES and LIARS!
Nance Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 6:51 am
oldnamvet-In a PERFECT WORLD! FYI-My brother was in Viet Nam as a Photogapher. He has been suffering with Migraines and has been in and out of the VA for years now.
spiritsoup Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Those bastards wouldn’t know which end of the Hot mop to put in the bucket. Hell they can come up to Michigan in the winter where we have to snow blow the roofs before we tear em’ off. Hopefully they will fall into the dumpster where they belong.
October 12th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Why am I not suprised?
October 12th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I’M NOT PAYING SHIT!!! KIss my INDEPENDENT ASS OBAMA!!!
October 12th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
…and also be placed in hard labor to pay for their higher doses of poison…medicine and housing?
Then the people who think they are well off 60K to 100million will look down on the disgusting excuse for humanity, praise the U.N. only to find out later that they too will be FEMA’d. Oh the poetic justice to come.
October 12th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
PLEASE FUNZO-(you farce) SEND YOUR BITCHES TO MY HOUSE FIRST.
P L E A S E.
(your daddy)
SPIRITBLADE Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
*Dearest LORD, in the name of Yahshua, (my Lord)- i pray you send the first-jerks to my-house first. If you won’t, then it is not your plan, but consider the delight in your child’s eye’s when they approach my town…
October 12th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Gee, who could have seen that coming? “cough.”
October 12th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
man that link at the top of the story isnt working properly for me anyone else got that problem?
October 12th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
“WakeUp” http://www.archive.org/details/WakeUp_542
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October 12th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
This AHIP’s report is an attempt of rescue the political career of Sen. Max Baucus, aka “Mad Max”.
At some point one of the sides have said: “You will simulate you’re against this bill for the public opinion support it”. The Baucus bill is the most conservative of the health care bills created so far in the both houses of congress. When the House and Senate leadership merge the versions, the health care sector want guaranteed that subsidies for insurance and no public option, a weak public option or an opt-out public insurance option will be in the final legislation.
The health insurance industry buy 6 lobbyists for each member of congress, brought local television and cable news programs and radio host across this country! With the knowledge i have, i can say this people will NEVER oppose the senate finance committee bill. This is why: they give billions in dollars every year in campaign contributions to politicians just to maintain the health system in america the same for 60 YEARS!
(Post my comment here Mr. Democracy)
Ned711 Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
I really Don’t understand W-H-Y Alex Jones or one of his surrogates show a picture of a progressive activist holding a sticker saying “public option”… the Senate Finance Committee is the only congress committee that doesn’t have a public insurance option in his health care bill. WHY? WHY Mr. Democracy? WHY Mr. Free Speech? I want to know and see my comment here!
October 12th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Most Federal workers in my state are covered by Blue Cross/Blue Shield. The National Health Care Plan will even make federal workers insurance to skyrocket! Somebody in Congress is fudging the numbers.
October 12th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Just forget about gov’t, live by means of the caveman get a little plot of ground and raise your food…………And to hell with the money…………
October 13th, 2009 at 11:47 am
The costs will ONLY go up because they won’t be able to rape the end users anymore by denying them coverage. Think about it. It isn’t that difficult.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
The day they try to force my work to pay for not having nationalized death care is the day they will move corporate ops off shore. Thankfully I work for a grocery store that only opens stores when they have the capital to do so. Obviously they understand the evils of the banks. They are not traded on the stock market and have a private label that is respected and constantly is unsuccessfully being copied. No additives, preservatives or artificial colors or flavors. They treat us like people NOT resources. Take a guess what company that is…give up? Trader Joe’s, the last and only name in real untainted food.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Great information, I will be linking back to you and going to look around at your other posts.