Anthem Blue Cross plans to go ahead with rate hikes in California

[TomCADem]

Source: LA Times

Reporting from Sacramento — Executives from California health insurance giant Anthem Blue Cross, under fire for scheduled rate hikes of up to 39%, insisted Tuesday that their premiums were fair and legal, and they told lawmakers they expected that the increases would go forward.

Appearing before the state Assembly's health committee, the officials said that they believed rate increases for individual health insurance policies, delayed until May 1 while being reviewed by the Department of Insurance, would survive scrutiny by regulators

The testimony came as members of the committee lashed out at Anthem for its proposed rate hikes and its corporate profit a day before the rate controversy moves to Washington, where a congressional subcommittee holds a hearing Wednesday.

At issue are steep premium increases for many of Anthem's 800,000 California customers who buy policies for themselves because they do not have insurance through employers.

Read more: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/24/business/la-fi-insure24-2010feb24

[Auggie]

1. Anthem's president is Leslie Margolin

Let the name be known

James Oatman is WellPoint's vice president and general manager of individual business

[Roland99]

2. "fair and legal"? "fair"?!?!?!? 39% increase in costs?

Well, assume they want *some* profit out of that but then 30-35% increase in costs? My ass!!


Fucking greedy fucks.



This is going *EXACTLY* as I predicted when the public option was dropped.

Insurance companies will have to take anyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions and can't charge more than 100% of the lowest policy premium for those people. Well, easy way to get around that! Raise the cost of the lowest-cost policy through the roof so even the healthiest of the healthy pay out the wazoo and those with pre-existing conditions will *REALLY* get screwed.

There's only one answer:

SINGLE. PAYER.

[benld74]

3. They gotta pay for their bonuses somehow,,,

[era veteran]

4. The parent company, Wellpoint, posted $4.7 billion profit for 2009

Putting them at a higher profit margin (7.3%) than the other 5 top insurance gangs. These 5 firms posted combined profits of $12.2 billion dollars in 2009, an increase of 56% or 4.4 billion dollars from 2008. " Have you no shame? "

[sulphurdunn]

5. The two great shortcomings

of the founding of the American Republic were its failure to constitutionally abolish slavery and to regulate corporations. We have, at great cost, remedied the former. It is time to attend to the latter.

[Capn Sunshine]

6. 2.5 Billion in profits last year

Not enough for them. By the way, this is a classic "Death Spiral"- members leave because costs are too high, so they have to raise costs.

[Jefferson23]

7. I hope someone brings this up at Blair House today.

[Romulox]

8. The only solution? *FORCE* more people to buy from Anthem! nt

[dflprincess]

9. They have to make up for all those campaign "contributions" they made somehow

and then there's all those lobbying expenses.