The health insurance industry has issued a report warning that under the current Senate version of Obamacare, the cost of private insurance will soar, apparently because the coverage requirement aspect has been weakened significantly. From the story:
The study, done by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the industry group, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), says that “by 2019 the cost of single [health care] coverage is expected to increase by $1500 more than it would under the current system and the cost of family coverage is expected to increase by $4000 more than it would under the current system.”
Why? The report cites four areas in the Finance Committee bill that would result in a cost increase:
”- Insurance market reforms coupled with a weak coverage requirement
- A new tax on high-cost health care plans
- Cost-shifting as a result of cuts to Medicare
- New taxes on several health care sectors.”
The weak coverage requirement is a significant factor that analysts across the political spectrum agree on, reports Fox’s Jim Angle.
Pro Obamacare advocates are tut-tutting and pushing back against the greedy industry and calling the study a set up job. Perhaps. But without getting into numbers, which I think are notoriously unreliable regardless of whose there are, I don’t see how they won’t rise significantly. Indeed, the point of much of this is to drive people away from private coverage into the public option, on the way to a single payer. And even if that strategy fails or is not enacted in whatever mess of a law is passed—something will be passed—you can’t prohibit underwriting, do away with the ability of private companies to innovate by providing policies with high deductibles and co-pays, require pre-existing conditions to be insured at no extra charge, increase the number of patients but not doctors—which will cause medical fees to soar—while also refusing to open the market to national competition, and not have higher premiums. Obamacare advocates who say otherwise are trying to fool all of the people all of the time.
