The health care bill is being signed today, which means six months of frivolous lawsuits and whining..
I've been thinking, "How can the insurance companies get around this" and I've come up with some dire predictions. 1) Rates *are* going to go up, alot. Based on what the credit companies did in the run up to credit reform, and under the guise of "we need to cover all of the pre existing condition folks", insurance companies will raise premiums by an order of magnitude and for that raise we'll get: 2) less service. If your policy covered any alternative or experimental treatments, expect them to be dropped,expect any "perks" to be dumped as well, expect drug coverage to change, if it doesn't have a large profit attached to it, it won't be covered 3) I haven't read the entire bill, but I haven't heard anything about rate caps, so while companies will be required to cover pre-existing conditions, they will charge a prohibitively expensive preimium for it. 4) Health insurance companies will change their service model, to any or all of the following: a car insurance model, where each time you use your health insurance your premiums will go up, the sicker you are the more you'll pay. Increased co-pays and procedure surcharges, so that routine visit to the doctor that was $10 will be $50 plus an added charge for every prodedure that the doctor does on you. Rates based on credit scores, while a group rate may get you a base, if your credit score is low, then your premiums will be higher, this could also be used as a reason to drop you. You'll then be dumped into the government system so that the insurance companies can gouge the taxpayers to pay for it. 5) More rigid PPO rules, dropped out of network coverage, or massively increased out of pocket costs. 6) in the months leading up to 2014, that insurance companies will begin shedding their chronicly ill customers, to artificially create a pool of pre-existing conditions, that can then be charged the much higher PEC rate. I don't know how the no insurance fine is going to be enforced, and who will collect it. But it has given the insurance companies a barrel to bend folks over, "pay up or face being fined", and I'm sure that it's in the legislation as a concession to the insurance lobby. I'm a cynic, and I don't trust big corporate service companies (banks, insurance, lenders etc). I hope I'm wrong about this... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:313743 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
