The finger pointing would not solve any problems. Insurers blame rising health care costs for the rate hike while hospitals blame high insurance premiums for their own fee hikes. When healthcare is nationalized, the room for competition falls, and businesses in the healthcare industry rely on government laws to make sure they stay profitable.

Its bad that health insurance prices might be rising, but this does not undermine the importance of having a good insurance. Up to 20 million Americans do not have insurance and these are the same people who have medical debts that occur when they are unable to foot costly hospital bills. It’s sad but everybody is feeling the pinch in this economic downturn.

A client once told me, “It is better to die than to fall sick in this country.”

raising premiums is never anything that anybody likes..  why would that change!

I’m sorry, but I find it very hard to have any sympathy for an industry based on denial of healthcare for people who have payed money in but have perhaps made mistakes in paperwork or have fallen victim to some other loophole. Ask doctors and pharmaceutical companies why their costs are so high and they will blame malpractice insurance companies. Where does the cycle end?

It is my personal belief that the farmers are more affected by the increasing of the health insurance rates. Their business has started to become less profitable and if they were to get sick they would be very sad.

In these financially troubled times when more and more people loose their health cover, health insurance rates should be dropping not increasing so they can afford it again. There is nothing worse for a man than knowing that he can’t care for his own health.
Thom Westley - Motorcycle insurance agent.

If companies like Montana health insurance can still maintain their current prices, It means that there is no need to over burden the population yet.

Everyone is trying to get covered and minimize their loses due to the financial crisis. Most insurance companies have raised their prices but this is not the case for all of them. For example, Montana health insurance didn’t and they don’t complain. It means that there are ways to keep the ongoing prices even in this crisis.

The answer is not in Ins companies.

Hulk2008, 

I absolutely agree that excessive profit should not be in the health insurance formula. 

That is why I am trying to understand why the small mutuals are not a great solution.  Each state could have their own, and also open them up for interstate sales as well, just in case some were run better than others.

The mutual configuration guarantees transparency and control by the policyholders through its elected board of directors.  Each company would stay small enough to provide some personalized services. 

The federal government could initiate one, as well, if people are paranoid about adequate competition.

The point is, who better to control a company than the policy holders?  I would go for that much quicker than I would for the government to be in control.

To DaveZx3:

I worked for a Blue Cross-Shield for 11 years.  Also contracted with some of its splinters for a number of years.  I built and maintained software at their direction.  At that time, 96 cents of every premium dollar was returned to policyholders. 
 
I mentioned “splinters” since that former mutual insurance company changed its structure and became a for-profit corporation, along with creating a number of side businesses (also for profit) and created a large umbrella of companies all generating lots of revenue.  Those that participated in the transition were handsomely rewarded. 
That company is now the largest health insurer and the most profitable.  It now returns about 60 cents of each premium dollar to the policyholders. 
  Profit should not be part of the health care formula.  Treatments and cures should never be up for bid.  Unlike doctors who ascribe to the Hippocratic Oath, insurers have NO allegiance to any patient other than to continually find more and more ways to suck money from them. 
  My calculator shows that changing from non-profit or mutual to for-profit creates about 35 cents of profits per premium dollar. 

The so-called “free market” has NOT been able to provide a cost-effective health care system.  But it sure has made a lot of executives wealthy.

All insurance companies are not “for profit.”  Many are mutuals, owned by the policyholders, not stockholders.  Mutuals return protit to the policyholders, or at least deal with it by means determined by the policyholders, who make up the board of directors of the mutual.

I think one good solution for excessive insurance profits would be for citizens to set up tons of small mutuals where they could govern the performance of the companies. 

I don’t know if there are any mutual health insurance companies, but I know there are many mutual property & casualty insurance companies and many mutual life insurance companies. 

Some of the auto and home insurance mutuals are among the most successful in the business, such as State Farm. 

When I lived up in Northern Maine a number of years ago, there was a little mutual called Maine Mutual right there in Presque Isle, ME, 2 miles from my house.  When you had a gripe, you could walk right in and talk to the president.  Greatest service I ever saw. 

For all the moaning and groaning done about insurance profits, you would think people would at least attempt to switch their insurance to a mutual, especially a local one, and get involved with it, at least to feel better about whether or not they are contributing to excessive profits.

Read the history of how mutuals originally were conceived, and you will see how people organized amongst themselves to deal with catastrophe within their communities, originally never collecting premium, but just entering into agreement that the group would chip in to pay for the individual losses of their mutual group.

Small mutuals cannot be expected to cover the catastrophic losses of Hurricane Katrinas or such natural disasters, so they purchase reinsurance from a deep pockets player to kick in when losses exceed a certain threshold.

As I said, I don’t know if mutuals are involved in health insurance, but I am going to check into it.

I can’t wait until they pass this bill and a few
months later the Courts rule it unconstitutional..

it will be yet another…

  <><><>***** O N L Y   I N   A M E R I C A ***<><><>

It could start a bad trend filling up space..

but I am just trying to find out if this
health care bill may be a bigger scam than it is
on the surface.

for if mandates are deemed unconstitutional, which
i am sure someone will challenge,
where will that leave us?
It’s going to be challenged…..
a mandate requiring a citizen to but private health
ins….it’s going to be challenged…

How about running ads here?  To Truthdig people think that’s a good idea?  I don’t.

I would really like to know

will the mandates be held unconstitutional???

they just might,,,mandating citizens to buy ins
  from private companies…

if the mandates are stricken as unconstitutional
where will that leave health care????

Another example of why strict regulation of the health insurance industry is necessary.

When I hear the President or congress speak about national security I don’t equate it with the military as most Americans are armed to the teeth, I think national security should reflect how we give our citizens heath care and provide for our young and elderly, education would closely follow.

This is were our tax dollars should be spent.

After our nations citizendry is secure and looked after then we can address the need for more nukes, ships, planes and tanks.

When you really investigate a health-care business, you don’t just ask a few random policy-owners to come in and tell their personal stories.  You look carefully at the company books and analyze things like: How many people were refused coverage because of “previous conditions”? What previous conditions? How many were inadequately covered and forced to swallow enormous costs they could not hope to pay?  How many were turned away with less than adequate treatment?  How many families with children lack health coverage entirely, and why?  How many doctors are seeing how many patients free of charge because of patient desperatioin?  How many people avoid going to the doctor until their condition worsens?

Statistics, statistics.  But the truth has to come out in detail, after which drastic changes in procedure have to be legislated in spite of the objections of insurers.

At the root the very idea of paying “stock-holder dividends” made from “profiting on other people’s illnesses” is dirty business!

People like this nice-looking lady going before committees of legislators and pleading the company’s case are not serious efforts to reform the system.  No, they are ways to cover up problems with pretense.

I wonder how many members on this sub-committee were
paid off last year with loads of cash from WellPoint.
Do you really think that this hearing will do any good
for those that are loosing their health insurance.

Why would she even have to explain

Everybody knows how much insurance companies
are hurting
Was it a super select sub-committee?
there are the only kinds of committees i trust