How can insurance be kept "affordable" with no public option?

[subterranean]

As I understand it, the proposed government subsidies to buy health insurance will be based on income as a percentage above the poverty line. The problem is, what happens if insurance companies continue to jack up their premiums 20% or 30% every year, and there's no public option to turn to? Insurance would quickly become unaffordable for many even with the subsidies.

Will there be any limits on how much insurance companies can raise premiums each year? If not, many people will be forced to opt out, pay the fine and go uninsured.

[msongs]

1. health care for profits could dump all the sick people? ti's what they REALLY want anyway nt

[phantom power]

2. There may be regulated limits. Or maybe not. Here's the thing...

even if they regulate rates, regulations like that are pretty easy to change later. When the GOP gets back in power, for example (and they will, sooner or later). Or simply if the insurance lobby spends a few extra millions next election cycle and buys off a few more congress men, D or R.

[quiller4]

3. Their rates could be regulated and subject to approval much

as utility rates are. 538 has a good piece on a trigger tied to regulation that is worth reading.

[truedelphi]

4. Read Matt Taibbi's article in the Rolling Sotne. The only

Meaningful way to control the cost of insurance premiums would be to have a public option.

And the final bill will go through the hands of Max Baucus and his committee. So it is not a very hopeful thing.

[jtrockville]

14. I'm not sure even a public option would be successful.

As I understand it, as long as your employer offers you insurance (whether you can afford it or not), you won't be eligible to "opt" for the public option. Is my understanding correct?

[truedelphi]

17. I don't think it's possible to tell right now.

There are multiple bills in the House, and also one in the Senate. So I would not venture to say. The fact that Baucus and his small group of extremely conservative committee members will probably put together the final House bill is not a good thing, though.

It bugs me that not only has the Insurance Industry bought out Congress at this point, but they did not have to spend that much to do it. Maybe less than 6 million bucks.

[FormerDittoHead]

5. COMPETITION! LET THE MARKET DO WHAT IT DOES BEST!

Screw everyone.






In case you didn't figure it out, the subject was in :sarcasm:

[The Wielding Truth]

6. Whatever the changes they must be airtight ,or the Ins. Co's. will

snake around them a hit us from another angle, just like the credit card companies and banks have.
A public option would be the only way to make them compete. They need to be countered,and not just regulated.

[truedelphi]

7. Here is one paragraph from Taibbi's article that is a crucial bit

OF information:

To recap, here's what ended up happening with health care. First, they gave away single-payer before a single gavel had fallen, apparently as a bargaining chip to the very insurers mostly responsible for creating the crisis in the first place.

Then they watered down the public option so as to make it almost meaningless, while simultaneously beefing up the individual mandate, which would force millions of people now uninsured to buy a product that is no longer certain to be either cheaper or more likely to prevent them from going bankrupt. The bill won't make drugs cheaper, and it might make paperwork for doctors even more unwieldy and complex than it is now. In fact, the various reform measures suck so badly that PhRMA, the notorious mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry which last year spent more than $20 million lobbying against health care reform, is now gratefully spending more than seven times that much on a marketing campaign to help the president get what he wants.

Does this information influence your thinking? Does it make it seem like a total pipe dream that this "mandate" will help the average American? It seems pretty clear that the mandate under the guise of reform will only be an offering to the insurance companies.

[QC]

8. Our ruling class is far richer than us working slobs. They have a different sense

of what is affordable. I fear that they will consider, say, $1500 a month for a family to be very affordable. I know that would put most families I know in the poorhouse, though. But then I run in different circles than the average White House of Congressional apparatchik.

[juno jones]

11. I make $1200 a month.

And they can put their subsidies where the sun don't shine. I hate the intrusion of means testing, to make it mandatory is unbelievable-who else but the poor have their income searched with a fine tooth-comb every month? If it holds true to other fed programs it's not just W-2s but ALL your assets that are considered.

I just want the healthcare I deserve for breaking my ass for someone else's American Dream, lo these nearly thirty years. Apparently, that's too much to ask.

Universal Health Care Now.

[cabluedem]

13. No public option=We poor dont pay any fines. nt

[ipaint]

9. It won't be.

The public option not only has to be included but it has to make the rules and regulate the profits and overhead.

Any other country that successfully offers private ins side by side with a government run option, that government option makes the rules and sets the standard for the private choices. The swiss and netherlands keep overhead down to 5% across the board and the swiss redistribute high profits from some private plans to other private option with that have more sick people in them.

The government options make the rules and the private options compete with each other within that set of rules.

The prediction in the news currently is a doubling of health care costs in 5 or so years. The reality is we cannot afford for profit private ins companies anymore.

[Hansel]

10. Use the Federal Employee insurance exchange

Give all people who are uninsured the right to purchase from the same insurance exchange that Federal employees do. Open it up to state workers as well. This would be an enormous number of people for insurance companies to get customers from.

With that incentive in place, set rules on which insurance companies can be listed in the Federal insurance exchange and open the exchange to all insurance companies that comply with these rules. They must be non-profit. They cannot be listed on the stock market. They cannot utilize a bonus pay system, only merit increases. CEO's cannot be compensated at rates more than 100 times that lowest paid professional employee.

Then add in all of the other rules talked about: Cannot deny people with pre-existing conditions, no canceling of policies because the person gets sick, pay by results not by each test or procedure, etc.

[cabluedem]

12. Opt B: opting out of paying any fines to crooks and liars industry. Count ont it. nt

[Skittles]

15. it can't, and that's why we won't get public option

[Kansas Wyatt]

16. Counter Washington Politicians Who Refuse To Work For The People

Everyone who DOESN'T agree that the Insurance Industry should be placed over the People and the Public Option should be eliminated or watered down, should DUMP all insurance coverage. Opt out of everything and get by paying out of pocket. Unless something is seriously wrong, it is cheaper than carrying "no-help" insurance coverage and carrying insurance still doesn't guarantee you from not going into bankruptcy, considering insurance companies dump so much of the bill or all of it on you anyway.

Since we would all be in the same boat, let them come for us and stand together.

The biggest losers of the Dump Insurance Protest... The Insurance Industry.

[Becky72]

18. Proponents of the "trigger" claim this would make it affordable

By pressuring insurers to lower costs, lest a public option is implemented. I don't know how true this is.

[Canuckistanian]

19. Eliminating "pre-existing conditions" would be a big move

Also eliminating "lifetime caps" and regulating premium payment rates would help.

But I still wouldn't call it "reform".