Just Got My New Rates for 2017...350% Increase! Are You Kidding?

[Oldstyle]

The letter from Florida Blue arrived yesterday and my insurance premiums will have a 350% increase starting this January. Affordable Care Act? Thanks Barry! Thanks Harry! Thanks Nancy! Thanks Democrats!

What the hell happened to my savings of $2,500 a year?

Hmmmm, your State has to approve any increase in rates from Florida Blue and they MUST be kept reasonable.... me thinks you need to question that 350% increase...

Whoops, see the Fla. Blue 2017 rate increases ordered taken down | Protecting Your Pocket

One of Florida’s largest health insurers says requested 2017 rate increases for four of its plans should not have been posted on healthcare.gov, but a reporter for The Palm Beach Post on Tuesday saw increases ranging from 5.22 percent to 11.61 percent.

“According to our Actuary team, what was posted were not the correct, final rates for Florida Blue – there are some adjustments that are not reflected in those numbers that were posted online,” said company spokesman Paul Kluding.

The company also known as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida says Wednesday is the deadline for plans to submit and rates should not be made public until 10 days after that. A federal spokesman had no immediate comment.

Here is what the Post saw:


BlueSelect Small Group 5.22 percent
BlueOptions Small Group 8.72 percent
BlueOptions Individual 9.83 percent
BlueSelection Individual 11.61 percent


The incident comes amid a broader discussion of what is happening to health costs. As The Post reported, U.S. officials said last week that Floridians really pay an average of $84 a month after tax credits for Affordable Care Act marketplace plans — and that’s only up from $82 last year. It’s a 2 percent rise.

more info at this link too!

Why Florida OKed higher 2017 premiums than health insurers sought

That was from May of 2016, Care! I just received my new premium rates in the mail yesterday from Florida Blue and it wasn't 5% or 8% or even 11%...it was an increase of 350% starting in 2017! Do you understand what's happening to the ACA? The REAL costs are now being revealed and they are ASTRONOMICAL! Gee, what affect do you think Middle Class people having to shell out 350% more for their healthcare coverage is going to do to the economy! Let me guess...you don't think increases like that are going to affect the family budget for things like a new car...a vacation trip next summer...a nice dinner out for mom and dad? The ripple this is going to cause to our economy is going be felt and felt hard!

 

[Oldstyle]

As for your unnamed "Federal officials" in that Palm Beach Post article? They were obviously as full of shit as Obama, Reid and Pelosi when they promised me a reduction in my healthcare costs if the ACA was passed! Those estimates they put out? Complete and utter BULLSHIT designed to hide from the American people how badly they've been screwed by you liberals until after the election!

 

[Andylusion]

Guess Fenton has no clue as to how to pay for it. I guess he still believes in the fairy godmother.

Well, last time I bothered reading any of his crap, his only response was that "other countries do it", which if you look at the UK doctor strikes over pay, the French funding crash, the Greek mass hospital closures, the 3 year long wait times in Canada, and of course the massive difference in 5-Year-Survival times between the US and the rest of the world... the argument "yeah other people do it" doesn't seem to be convincing.

It's like "other people do drugs and it works for them", then pretending all the rehab centers don't exist.

I still have yet to hear him even address the fact that all those systems have almost double the taxation. If you increase your taxes by 20%, is that really a better deal than insurance premiums.

The letter from Florida Blue arrived yesterday and my insurance premiums will have a 350% increase starting this January. Affordable Care Act? Thanks Barry! Thanks Harry! Thanks Nancy! Thanks Democrats!

What the hell happened to my savings of $2,500 a year?

Hmmmm, your State has to approve any increase in rates from Florida Blue and they MUST be kept reasonable.... me thinks you need to question that 350% increase...

Whoops, see the Fla. Blue 2017 rate increases ordered taken down | Protecting Your Pocket

One of Florida’s largest health insurers says requested 2017 rate increases for four of its plans should not have been posted on healthcare.gov, but a reporter for The Palm Beach Post on Tuesday saw increases ranging from 5.22 percent to 11.61 percent.

“According to our Actuary team, what was posted were not the correct, final rates for Florida Blue – there are some adjustments that are not reflected in those numbers that were posted online,” said company spokesman Paul Kluding.

The company also known as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida says Wednesday is the deadline for plans to submit and rates should not be made public until 10 days after that. A federal spokesman had no immediate comment.

Here is what the Post saw:


BlueSelect Small Group 5.22 percent
BlueOptions Small Group 8.72 percent
BlueOptions Individual 9.83 percent
BlueSelection Individual 11.61 percent


The incident comes amid a broader discussion of what is happening to health costs. As The Post reported, U.S. officials said last week that Floridians really pay an average of $84 a month after tax credits for Affordable Care Act marketplace plans — and that’s only up from $82 last year. It’s a 2 percent rise.

more info at this link too!

Why Florida OKed higher 2017 premiums than health insurers sought

Couple of things....

First off, the whole "the state must approve rate increases" thing.

I want you to imagine a completely fictional situation. Imagine if you are governor. Imagine that your government agency rejected rate increases to the largest insurance company in the state, and that insurance company faced with having policies that did not turn a profit, but instead lost the company money, decided to instead cut the insurance plans that were not profitable.

As a result, half a million people in your state, suddenly had no insurance.

You know what that spells for you? A political blood bath, that would most certainly wipe you out, and likely take down most of the politicians from your party. I could even effect Federal Senators and Representatives.

So what are the incentives of the people in government? To basically give every cost increase to the companies they want. This is yet another reason why regulations by their vary nature don't work.

The capitalist system is far more effective at weeding out over charging companies, because competition by other companies keeps the market prices as low as possible.

If you have government in charge of pricing, well then you better give me my rate increase, or you'll have several hundred thousand pissed off natives with pitch forks and torches burning down the capital building.

In MassHealth, they actually tried at one point to refuse rate hikes on medications. The result? All the pharmaceutical companies announced plans to leave the state. They quickly reversed, and accepted the rate hikes.

Regulating pricing never works. Never. France often doesn't have the new medications that America has. People in France commonly buy medications over the internet, because they can't get them under their price controlled system. Doctors routinely do not even tell patients about medications, they knew they can't get.

Not a good plan. But socialism at it's best.

Secondly, looking at the end user costs alone, is a brutal deception.

The Obamacare act has tons of hidden costs, that while keeping the cost low on your front pocket, are driving up costs on your back pocket.

Over 1/3rd of the states are considering raising taxes to cover short fall in the budgets. Many others have already raised taxes, and many more have cut medicare and medicaid.

Lastly, many states are trying to get out of the health care exchanges.

The problem is, the Obamacare system has tons of costs to the states, that show up in different areas. The most obvious example, is the exchanges themselves are staffed by the state, and paid by the state. Well, that means you. When you hear a state is raising taxes on gasoline to pay for road repair.... well how about that $100 Million spent on the health exchange? Can't use that money for road repair now, so you have to pay more for gas.

While you sit there and say "my insurance premiums only went up by 5% after the tax credit", yeah that ignores that $100 you lost from your back pocket in other tax increases.

Finally, this also ignores higher premiums others are paying.

This is an indirect subsidy that many people don't see.

His higher costs aren't subsidizing lower-income policyholders, whose subsidy has already been paid by the government. But he is providing a subsidy in another way: The Affordable Care Act requires him to buy a policy with features he doesn't need.

"Seeing as I'm a single male with no kids or dependents, and I'm paying for pediatric dental care and maternity care, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me," McLemore says.​

How The Affordable Care Act Pays For Insurance Subsidies

No sir, it does not make sense. My policy covers alcoholism rehab. I don't drink. Haven't had an alcoholic drink but possibly one time in my whole life.

Make no sense at all, unless of course you want to find a way to force people to pay higher prices to insurance companies, to offset other people.

This is one of the reasons all of the insurance companies are increasing premiums faster than they had before Obamacare.

If you doubt that, just ask the insurance companies.

Final Rate Determinations | Florida Blue

• Utilization Adjustment
• Adjustment to projected claims at the metal level to account for differing utilization between benefit richness level
• Addition of coverage for Essential Health Benefits (EHBs)
• New benefit mandates under the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) and other EHB expansions mandated by PPACA

Boom there it is. New benefits mandates. Doesn't matter if I'm single, I still have a "benefit mandate" that requires I have maternity coverage, even though it is impossible (baring some miracle of G-d) that I would ever use it.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

Other societies have figure this out, we don't want it figured out here.

Are you kidding me, Fenton? That's your response? You progressives shoved this bill down the throats of everyone in this country and now healthcare costs are exploding and your only response is that we need to figure it out? HOW ABOUT FIGURING IT OUT BEFORE YOU PASSED LEGISLATION THAT AFFECTED 1/6 OF OUR ECONOMY AND MILLIONS OF PEOPLE!!! YOU ASSHAT!!!

Ironically, I just put Fenton on ignore. You should do the same. He'll never debate anything you say, other than to deflect and evade any points you make. Just letting you know.

If you need to know how to ignore someone, just click on their name.

View attachment 95757
That box will come up, and you just click on ignore. Works on anyone that is beyond any value of talking to. Makes the forums so much more interesting when you ignore the stupid people.

Thanks. I just did it.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

If you think the premiums are bad, wait until you have to get a prescription filled. You will drop right there.

 

[Andylusion]

If you think the premiums are bad, wait until you have to get a prescription filled. You will drop right there.

Well first off, if it comes to that, I'll hop on the internet, and search for the cheapest alternative. In today's world, you can order just about anything, from anywhere. I'll find a generic.

 

[frigidweirdo]

The letter from Florida Blue arrived yesterday and my insurance premiums will have a 350% increase starting this January. Affordable Care Act? Thanks Barry! Thanks Harry! Thanks Nancy! Thanks Democrats!

What the hell happened to my savings of $2,500 a year?

Yeah, blame Obamacare. Don't blame those who have pushed for all the corruption.

How much do you have to pay just for the insurance company? A completely UNNECESSARY waste of space, and you have to pay loads just for them to do something useless and then make profits on it.

How much do you pay in drugs costing too much? Doctors choosing the most ridiculously expensive drug when a cheap one would do? How much do you have to pay for hospital profits, and for them to charge you for anything and everything.

The UK spends half what the US pays for healthcare, and people in the UK have complained (mostly the rich) that it costs too much. If you paid more than the UK pays for healthcare you'd have a decent system, AND pay less.

But no, blame Obama for trying to get poor people having insurance.

 

[Andylusion]

The letter from Florida Blue arrived yesterday and my insurance premiums will have a 350% increase starting this January. Affordable Care Act? Thanks Barry! Thanks Harry! Thanks Nancy! Thanks Democrats!

What the hell happened to my savings of $2,500 a year?

Yeah, blame Obamacare. Don't blame those who have pushed for all the corruption.

How much do you have to pay just for the insurance company? A completely UNNECESSARY waste of space, and you have to pay loads just for them to do something useless and then make profits on it.

How much do you pay in drugs costing too much? Doctors choosing the most ridiculously expensive drug when a cheap one would do? How much do you have to pay for hospital profits, and for them to charge you for anything and everything.

The UK spends half what the US pays for healthcare, and people in the UK have complained (mostly the rich) that it costs too much. If you paid more than the UK pays for healthcare you'd have a decent system, AND pay less.

But no, blame Obama for trying to get poor people having insurance.

First, while there is some amount of corruption, there isn't nearly as much as you think. The ObamaCare bill was not pushed by the companies. It was pushed by Obama.

The costly regulations that have been driving up health care costs for decades were not pushed by the companies, they were pushed by the left.

The health insurance and hospitals didn't call up Obama and say "hey let's screw up the health care industry with costly stupid regulations!"

No, Obama called up the health care industry and said "I'm going to screw up the health industry with regulations. Do you have any suggestions?".

Second, if insurance companies were in fact unnecessary and a waste, then we would never have used them to start with. Funny how the Canadians actually sued their own government for the right to have private insurance, and France, Germany and numerous other countries, all have private insurance on top of their expensive gov-care system.

So oddly it would seem that most of the people in 1st world countries all believe insurance isn't a waste.

Third, while you claim that the UK spend half as much on health care, that isn't entirely true.

They spend less, because they get less. It's easy to say then spend half as much, when they don't get nearly as much.

25 cancer drugs to be denied on NHS

But hey... it keeps costs down.

Can I demand a specific treatment? - Health questions - NHS Choices

Straight from the NHS web site:
Remember that:
some types of treatment aren't available on the NHS

But at least it's cheaper! In fact not getting treatment is universally cheaper.

'I went abroad for prostate cancer therapy... and I'm sending the NHS

"While the NHS acknowledges the benefits of proton therapy and plans to build its own centres, many patients are given inferior treatments simply because the cost of sending patients to the US for this treatment – well over £100,000 - is too high.”

There you go. Yeah, we'll get that treatment here.... eventually.... but for now the cost is just too high, so you get this inferior treatment, and hope you live. Yeah, maybe you'd like a say in that, but since we're footing the bill, we'll make that call for you.

You know.... so we keep cost down. Wouldn't want to be as expensive as the US.

This is the problem dude. Comparing US to the UK health care, is not an apples to apples comparison. Never has been.

Every time they have compared real survival rates on nearly everything, the US does better, and by a wide margin.

Do you really want to cut costs and risk dying more? You really want to cause literally millions of people to die, to save a few bucks?

 

[WillowTree]

The letter from Florida Blue arrived yesterday and my insurance premiums will have a 350% increase starting this January. Affordable Care Act? Thanks Barry! Thanks Harry! Thanks Nancy! Thanks Democrats!

What the hell happened to my savings of $2,500 a year?

Yeah, blame Obamacare. Don't blame those who have pushed for all the corruption.

How much do you have to pay just for the insurance company? A completely UNNECESSARY waste of space, and you have to pay loads just for them to do something useless and then make profits on it.

How much do you pay in drugs costing too much? Doctors choosing the most ridiculously expensive drug when a cheap one would do? How much do you have to pay for hospital profits, and for them to charge you for anything and everything.

The UK spends half what the US pays for healthcare, and people in the UK have complained (mostly the rich) that it costs too much. If you paid more than the UK pays for healthcare you'd have a decent system, AND pay less.

But no, blame Obama for trying to get poor people having insurance.

If all Obama wanted was to get poor people insurance he merely had to write a law subsidizing them right? We did not need to be mandated, we did not need the democrats to tell us exactly what coverage we needed, we Did not need Nancy Pelosi telling us it will be a big surprise we will know what's in it after we pass it. Well you democrats passed it and the only happy people are the poor people because they get theirs for nothing. The rest of us have to pay out the ass for something we can no longer afford and we will have our asses taxed off for not buying what we cannot afford. Damn right we are blaming Obama.

 

[Ravi]

The letter from Florida Blue arrived yesterday and my insurance premiums will have a 350% increase starting this January. Affordable Care Act? Thanks Barry! Thanks Harry! Thanks Nancy! Thanks Democrats!

What the hell happened to my savings of $2,500 a year?

Let's see the letter.

 

[Oldstyle]

The letter from Florida Blue arrived yesterday and my insurance premiums will have a 350% increase starting this January. Affordable Care Act? Thanks Barry! Thanks Harry! Thanks Nancy! Thanks Democrats!

What the hell happened to my savings of $2,500 a year?

Yeah, blame Obamacare. Don't blame those who have pushed for all the corruption.

How much do you have to pay just for the insurance company? A completely UNNECESSARY waste of space, and you have to pay loads just for them to do something useless and then make profits on it.

How much do you pay in drugs costing too much? Doctors choosing the most ridiculously expensive drug when a cheap one would do? How much do you have to pay for hospital profits, and for them to charge you for anything and everything.

The UK spends half what the US pays for healthcare, and people in the UK have complained (mostly the rich) that it costs too much. If you paid more than the UK pays for healthcare you'd have a decent system, AND pay less.

But no, blame Obama for trying to get poor people having insurance.

So I shouldn't blame Obama for lying to me about what the ACA would cost? I shouldn't blame Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi for rushing an absolutely horrible piece of legislation through Congress before the representatives that the people elected to stop them could be seated? The liberal wing of the Democratic Party owns ObamaCare and owns it's failure. They wrote the law. They passed the law.

 

[Anathema]

Other societies have figure this out, we don't want it figured out here.

We have a different Government - Citizen dynamic than other nations. Here the Government works for the People instead of Dominating them. Our Founding documents LIMIT rather then EMPOWER the Government. It's a totally different sydtem.

 

[Iceweasel]

It looks like I'll have to go without insurance. Unfortunately, I see no other option at this point.

Now you're catching on. They want you to die off.

The fewer carbon emitters the better. The plan is coming together.

 

[frigidweirdo]

The letter from Florida Blue arrived yesterday and my insurance premiums will have a 350% increase starting this January. Affordable Care Act? Thanks Barry! Thanks Harry! Thanks Nancy! Thanks Democrats!

What the hell happened to my savings of $2,500 a year?

Yeah, blame Obamacare. Don't blame those who have pushed for all the corruption.

How much do you have to pay just for the insurance company? A completely UNNECESSARY waste of space, and you have to pay loads just for them to do something useless and then make profits on it.

How much do you pay in drugs costing too much? Doctors choosing the most ridiculously expensive drug when a cheap one would do? How much do you have to pay for hospital profits, and for them to charge you for anything and everything.

The UK spends half what the US pays for healthcare, and people in the UK have complained (mostly the rich) that it costs too much. If you paid more than the UK pays for healthcare you'd have a decent system, AND pay less.

But no, blame Obama for trying to get poor people having insurance.

First, while there is some amount of corruption, there isn't nearly as much as you think. The ObamaCare bill was not pushed by the companies. It was pushed by Obama.

The costly regulations that have been driving up health care costs for decades were not pushed by the companies, they were pushed by the left.

The health insurance and hospitals didn't call up Obama and say "hey let's screw up the health care industry with costly stupid regulations!"

No, Obama called up the health care industry and said "I'm going to screw up the health industry with regulations. Do you have any suggestions?".

Second, if insurance companies were in fact unnecessary and a waste, then we would never have used them to start with. Funny how the Canadians actually sued their own government for the right to have private insurance, and France, Germany and numerous other countries, all have private insurance on top of their expensive gov-care system.

So oddly it would seem that most of the people in 1st world countries all believe insurance isn't a waste.

Third, while you claim that the UK spend half as much on health care, that isn't entirely true.

They spend less, because they get less. It's easy to say then spend half as much, when they don't get nearly as much.

25 cancer drugs to be denied on NHS

But hey... it keeps costs down.

Can I demand a specific treatment? - Health questions - NHS Choices

Straight from the NHS web site:
Remember that:
some types of treatment aren't available on the NHS

But at least it's cheaper! In fact not getting treatment is universally cheaper.

'I went abroad for prostate cancer therapy... and I'm sending the NHS

"While the NHS acknowledges the benefits of proton therapy and plans to build its own centres, many patients are given inferior treatments simply because the cost of sending patients to the US for this treatment – well over £100,000 - is too high.”

There you go. Yeah, we'll get that treatment here.... eventually.... but for now the cost is just too high, so you get this inferior treatment, and hope you live. Yeah, maybe you'd like a say in that, but since we're footing the bill, we'll make that call for you.

You know.... so we keep cost down. Wouldn't want to be as expensive as the US.

This is the problem dude. Comparing US to the UK health care, is not an apples to apples comparison. Never has been.

View attachment 95870

Every time they have compared real survival rates on nearly everything, the US does better, and by a wide margin.

Do you really want to cut costs and risk dying more? You really want to cause literally millions of people to die, to save a few bucks?

I think you are trying to avoid what I said.

There is lots of corruption. Estimates are 3% of US GDP. These are not my estimates, these are the estimates of those who count such things. Mine are much higher.

Health insurance for profit is a thing of the right.

Health Insurance Industry | Health Care for America Now

"The $884-billion-a-year private health insurance industry,"

US health care: Spending a lot, getting the least

"The U.S. spent an average of $9,086 per person on health care in 2013, which translated to more than 17 percent of gross domestic product, the fund noted."

US GDP is $18.5 trillion in 2016. That's $18,000,000,000,000, which means 17% of this is $3,060,000,000,000 or $3 trillion a year on healthcare. $884 billion is about 28% of all healthcare costs. It's completely unnecessary. The UK doesn't need health insurance companies, the only health insurance companies that exist (like BUPA) are ones that serve those who choose to have private health insurance. People aren't forced to have insurance in order to get health care.

So, imagine the UK spends 50 on healthcare. The US spends 100 on healthcare, but 28 of this healthcare isn't healthcare at all, it's insurance companies. That means the US actually spends 72 on healthcare.

The left would have this gone. They'd save you that much money by getting rid of the unnecessary.

People are talking about premiums going up. But they've been going up for a long time BEFORE Obamacare.

Higher health-insurance premiums don’t mean the Affordable Care Act is a disaster


"But here is the good news. While health-care costs and premiums are rising — the recent announcement notwithstanding — they are rising much more slowly than they did during the George W. Bush administration and, indeed, over the past 50 years."

Simply said, people are saying "Obamacare is here, and premiums are going up, therefore it must be Obamacare that is making premiums go up", is it? Really? What about before Obamacare, why did they go up?

No, the right wants to keep health insurance, they want to keep private hospitals, they want to keep it expensive, and then they complain that it's too expensive and blame the left. A similar thing has happened in the UK. Cameron said the UK's NHS was too expensive (half the cost of the US system, I mean, come on), so increased the amount of privatization (which costs MORE). Go figure.

You said "if insurance companies were in fact unnecessary and a waste, then we would never have used them to start with." I'm calling Bullshit on this one. The UK doesn't need health insurance companies. It's that simple.

The UK spends less, possibly gets less, however what you're looking at is what the CONSERVATIVE GOVT is doing. They're stripping the NHS down in order to show people "it doesn't work" so they can impose a more expensive private system over the top. It's ideology, pure and simply. The NHS under Labour was getting better and better, after the Tories (the Conservatives) stripped it bear up to 1997 in the hope of doing exactly the same thing. Look at the NHS up to 2010 and you'll see something quite different.

The problem with the US system is that SOME PEOPLE get great healthcare. I'm not saying they don't. However some people don't get great healthcare and Obama has tried to change that, and it is leading to higher costs.
However, if the UK increased its 50 on spending up to 100, it'd have a great system. But the Tories say it's too expensive (let's spend more on profits for private companies) and therefore are reducing everything. There's your problem.

 

[saveliberty]

Other societies have figure this out, we don't want it figured out here.

Yep, give free or nearly free coverage and crush national economies.

 

[Fenton Lum]

It looks like I'll have to go without insurance. Unfortunately, I see no other option at this point.

Now you're catching on. They want you to die off.

Well of course. Under a socialist system, where the public pays for your needs, you are by definition a burden on the system. If you didn't exist, everyone else would be better off.

Under a capitalist system, by definition you get what you pay for, and thus you are a benefit to society.

In our "capitalist" system you are only useful insofar as you still have earning potential to feed into the system. Once that's past, you're warehoused until death.

 

[Fenton Lum]

I've said it again, and I guess I'll just keep repeating myself.

In 2006, I got an insurance policy for just $67 a month.

Today, the cheapest insurance is $250.

ObamaCare did this. If you voted for Obama, then you got what you asked for.

Unfortunately the rest of us have to pay for their stupidity.

We've all been paying for american supidity all our loves.

Not American stupidity, LIBERAL stupidity.

You are obviously why the american stupidity continues.

 

[Fenton Lum]

Other societies have figure this out, we don't want it figured out here.

Yep, give free or nearly free coverage and crush national economies.

Guess you're not up on the better health outcomes others are able to achieve for far less of a financial drain on society.

 

[Fenton Lum]

It really doesn't matter if we figure out healthcare in america anyway, what's important to the american public is that we always have someone else to blame.

 

[Fenton Lum]

Other societies have figure this out, we don't want it figured out here.

We have a different Government - Citizen dynamic than other nations. Here the Government works for the People instead of Dominating them. Our Founding documents LIMIT rather then EMPOWER the Government. It's a totally different sydtem.

Really, your govt works for the people, pffffffffffffffft, hardly.