Politics

As Premiums for Americans Continue to Skyrocket, Need for Health Insurance Reform is Now

According to a Washington Post poll released this week, Americans strongly support Congress continuing to work on comprehensive health insurance reform (63% support) - including a majority of Independents. Work continues between the House and Senate, and President Obama will convene a bipartisan, bicameral meeting on February 25 to move forward with a solution for American families and American small businesses. Other findings from the poll:

Among Independents, 56% supported continued action to pass health insurance reform.

58% in the new poll say the Republicans aren’t doing enough to forge compromise with President Obama on important issues.

88% of Democrats think lawmakers in Washington should continue to press forward with comprehensive health care reform.

Following on the heels of the new poll data showing strong support on moving forward with comprehensive health insurance reform, an editorial in yesterday's Los Angeles Times on the outrageous premium increases announced by Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield (owned by WellPoint) best illustrates why Congress needs to move forward without delay:

The company recently informed many of the approximately 800,000 Californians who buy its individual policies that premiums will rise sharply March 1. Although Anthem provided no details, insurance brokers say they’re already seeing increases of up to 39%. That’s on top of even larger rate hikes last year. With the pending health care bills proposing new limits on premiums and profits, the Anthem increases look suspiciously like an attempt to extract as much as possible from customers before the rules change.

[The House and Senate health care bills] would bar insurance companies from cherry-picking customers and denying coverage for preexisting conditions, enabling people to switch insurers easily. The bills also would promote competition and clarity in pricing through a new marketplace for individual policies. Anthem’s actions offer the best argument yet for Congress to complete work on a comprehensive bill without delay.

Yesterday, WellPoint responded to the Obama Administration's request to publicly justify their premium increases and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius declared WellPoint's explanation of the increases inadequate:

It remains difficult to understand how a company that made $2.7 billion in the last quarter of 2009 alone can justify massive increases that will leave consumers with nothing but bad options," she said. Those options, she suggested, were to pay more for coverage, cut back on benefits or join the ranks of the uninsured.

High health care costs alone cannot account for a premium increase that is 10 times higher than national health spending growth," she said.

As Secretary Sebelius notes, WellPoint reported a staggering $2,740,000,000 in profits for the fourth quarter of 2009 alone - eight times more than the last quarter of 2008 - and more than $4,750,000,000 for all of 2009. In fact, the company reaped these record profits even as it lost more than 1.4 million members. Other health insurance company figures recently released show the same trend:

Earlier this week, the Energy and Commerce Committee announced that the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing on February 24th regarding Anthem's rate increases.

Full post as published by The Gavel on February 12, 2010 (boomark / email).