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Florida Blue cutting 300K policies

jmotivator said:
You need to learn the differences between a planning and execution. Progressive plans always LOOK great if your judge them by their end goal. There is little attention given to the moment or the failures, it's always the end that matters.

You spell out all this things that you think are super great about the ACA, but it means nothing to the family that no longer has insurance, can't afford this new insurance, and couldn't sign up for it even if they could.

All that the ACA does is take the donut whole of uninsured that that used to exist down at the bottom of the income range and shift it up a few notches. Now you have to work to be unable to afford insurance....
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Excellent post.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Another occasion where that "dislike" button I've lobbied for would come in handy.
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Also, "Nobody blows like the Argos" - heard from a fan at Ivor Wynne Stadium in Hamilton (actually, I did hear that there)



(taped by a bunch of Argo fan douchebags)
 
At this time, it is too early to determine whether the ACA will lead to costly distortions in the health insurance market. A degree of risk exists, but much more data will be required to support evidence-based conclusions concerning that risk.

With respect to these early cancellations, at least two points are important:

1. Are policies being canceled simply because they don't contain all the required elements ("under-coverage" if you will) or for purposes of altering risk pools (adverse selection) to make them more profitable for the insurer. The News 4 article, which contains text from the Florida Blue press release, suggests the former.

2. When policies are canceled, do the former policyholders have a chance to enroll in new plans? Insurers cannot automatically enroll former policyholders into new plans by law and for ethical reasons. The News 4 piece suggests that former policyholders are being encouraged to speak with their insurance agents to enroll in the company's new plan, among other options. That further suggests that the adverse selection issue may not be involved, but again more data will be required before one can reach a firm conclusion e.g., cost barriers to the new policies will be important (if they are prohibitive, then adverse selection is playing a role; if they are commensurate with the added coverage on a net cost--or added cost reduced by the subsidy--then adverse selection is not a meaningful factor.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Because those cheap policies might not exist any longer for many. Not everyone can just "start paying more for better coverage", so it's likely a large portion of those 300k being dropped are now SOL.

The thing that will piss me off the most in all of this is the democrats will eventually just blame the free market instead of the ACA itself, then use that as another reason to grab more power.
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Do you deny that the low rates for these seriously limited policies that failed when you needed them most, were subsidized by the death of sick people who were refused coverage by the health insurance company death panels that refused to cover them, and what justification do you offer to their families for this immoral treatment by the insurance company death panels?
 
Samhain said:
Those that will join the exchange will be those with pre-existing conditions.

The Exchanges are setup to only stay in the black if 40% of "healthy invincibles" purchase plans. That isn't going to happen because: 1) like you said, I can get insurance after I get sick and I'm still covered, and 2) I can stay on my parents plan for 5 years of my "healthy invincible" years.

Biggest shock is going to come in late 2014/early 2015. That will be when the media gets to report on the exchange plan price differences between years. Since companies have to spend 80% of premiums on care, what percentage increase do you think is going to be come next year? Remember, they can't kick you off if you are sick or have a pre-existing condition.

The premium price will then skyrocket, even less people will be covered, and the end result will be death spiral.
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Without doubt the key to the plan working will be for healthy people to be in it, hence the individual mandate. The penalty for not having health ins. in 2014 looks too low but will rise to more reasonable levels in 2015/2016. I have read concerns whether it is collectible, and if it is not, this well may fail. However, the old system failed by allowing the health insurance death panels to deny coverage to people with serious illnesses, and studies showed that led to their pre-mature death. That is a more serious problem than healthy young people paying 600 a year into the health ins. pool. If you're an unborn in the womb the right wing wants to save you, but if later that costs them 600 a year so we have a national health ins. system that will insure everyone, well you can just die. Doesn't make sense to me.
 
Well that begs the question, is having standards bad or setting a standard and having no defense to prevent collusion from the insurance companies? I think the latter.
 
CanadaJohn said:
I don't disagree with your suggestion, but wouldn't such a significant change to medicare require States to approve it since they pay a big chunk of the costs too? And wouldn't that have been more open to constitutional challenge than Obamacare proved to be?
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no, the state level health care for the poor is medicaid. that would be eliminated, and everyone would be absorbed into Medicare. sure, people would fight it in court and lose just like they did with the PPACA. i'm not a supporter of the PPACA because it doesn't directly solve the cost and inefficiencies. indirectly it will, because it probably isn't going to work, it will piss people off, and then we'll replace it with single payer.
 
jmotivator said:
You need to learn the differences between a planning and execution. Progressive plans always LOOK great if your judge them by their end goal. There is little attention given to the moment or the failures, it's always the end that matters.

You spell out all this things that you think are super great about the ACA, but it means nothing to the family that no longer has insurance, can't afford this new insurance, and couldn't sign up for it even if they could.

All that the ACA does is take the donut whole of uninsured that that used to exist down at the bottom of the income range and shift it up a few notches. Now you have to work to be unable to afford insurance....
Click to expand...


And you seem to buy into the myth of health ins. under the old system, that the cheap policy they could afford, which guaranteed would FAIL if they really needed it when they got a survivable cancer illness that required expensive long term care, that is an OK model. It is not; it is merely a myth that you have a good policy. You have a policy designed to GUARANTEE the heath ins. company a profit if nothing really bad happens to you, and FAILS for you if you get really sick and need a lot of care. That's simply a pathetic system. It's not a national healthcare system, its just a guaranteed profit system for the health ins. industry.
 
finebead said:
Let's see, you had a policy that was cheap, well, because it was a cheap policy. If you got really sick, like cancer, you could be kicked off that cheap policy. If they didn't kick you off when you got cancer, then the lifetime max would kick in and you wouldn't have health ins. although you desperately needed it. Clearly, you had a cheap policy that did a reasonable job taking care of normal healthcare needs and it failed to take care of major needs. But, since most people are healthy most of the time, most people were dumb and happy about their situation, until they got really sick and they became very unhappy with their crappy situation after they were dropped and couldn't get health insurance anywhere because of the health insurance company death panels that evaluated their illness and denied them coverage due to their pre-existing condition.

Clearly that cheap old policy cannot provide the standard of benefits required by Obamacare (which people need whether their short sighted minds realize it now or not), so the policy must be changed to specify new terms that meet the standard, and at a new rate.

You are guaranteed coverage in the exchange, and that policy will not have a lifetime maximum, and you can't be dropped just because you have or get a serious illness. That's a much better policy.

How is that a bad thing?
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I'm skeptical of the ACA for a variety of reasons but I appreciate the good explanation.
 
Erod said:
I'm convinced it's by design that this entire cluster**** happened. Ultimately, give the middle class no choice but to adopt a single payer government plan and put the insurance industry out of business.

But those folks in Congress will be exempt and get an aristocratic plan of their own.
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That's been the plan from the beginning.
 
finebead said:
Let's see, you had a policy that was cheap, well, because it was a cheap policy. If
you got really sick, like cancer, you could be kicked off that cheap policy. If they didn't kick you off when you got cancer, then the lifetime max would kick in and you wouldn't have health ins. although you desperately needed it. Clearly, you had a cheap policy that did a reasonable job taking care of normal healthcare needs and it failed to take care of major needs. But, since most people are healthy most of the time, most people were dumb and happy about their situation, until they got really sick and they became very unhappy with their crappy situation after they were dropped and couldn't get health insurance anywhere because of the health insurance company death panels that evaluated their illness and denied them coverage due to their pre-existing condition.

Clearly that cheap old policy cannot provide the standard of benefits required by Obamacare (which people need whether their short sighted minds realize it now or not), so the policy must be changed to specify new terms that meet the standard, and at a new rate.

You are guaranteed coverage in the exchange, and that policy will not have a lifetime maximum, and you can't be dropped just because you have or get a serious illness. That's a much better policy.

How is that a bad thing?
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Ask the people that have lost coverage for themselves and their dependants, who now have to go the exchanges and buy their own policoes with money they don't have.

Policies that have become extremely expensive because of all of those " guarantees" you stated.

Obama-Care is an absolute disaster through and through.
 
donsutherland1 said:
At this time, it is too early to determine whether the ACA will lead to costly distortions in the health insurance market. A degree of risk exists, but much more data will be required to support evidence-based conclusions concerning that risk.

With respect to these early cancellations, at least two points are important:

1. Are policies being canceled simply because they don't contain all the required elements ("under-coverage" if you will) or for purposes of altering risk pools (adverse selection) to make them more profitable for the insurer. The News 4 article, which contains text from the Florida Blue press release, suggests the former.

2. When policies are canceled, do the former policyholders have a chance to enroll in new plans? Insurers cannot automatically enroll former policyholders into new plans by law and for ethical reasons. The News 4 piece suggests that former policyholders are being encouraged to speak with their insurance agents to enroll in the company's new plan, among other options. That further suggests that the adverse selection issue may not be involved, but again more data will be required before one can reach a firm conclusion e.g., cost barriers to the new policies will be important (if they are prohibitive, then adverse selection is playing a role; if they are commensurate with the added coverage on a net cost--or added cost reduced by the subsidy--then adverse selection is not a meaningful factor.
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Wow, that's great don!!! And tell me, what happens when that young family of 4 is told that a shinny new o plan will cost them 150% more, and a deductible 10 times what they had, how are they supposed to do that?
 
finebead said:
Do you deny that the low rates for these seriously limited policies that failed when you needed them most, were subsidized by the death of sick people who were refused coverage by the health insurance company death panels that refused to cover them, and what justification do you offer to their families for this immoral treatment by the insurance company death panels?
Click to expand...

I don't think it has anything do with the "quality" of the plans. I would surmise that the 300,000 policies were at or near the break even point and the company wants those people to enroll in costlier plans. If they do the company is a winner. If they don't, the company is still a winner because it eliminates a bunch of questionable policies and sends them to the government.
 
finebead said:
Without doubt the key to the plan working will be for healthy people to be in it, hence the individual mandate. The penalty for not having health ins. in 2014 looks too low but will rise to more reasonable levels in 2015/2016. I have read concerns whether it is collectible, and if it is not, this well may fail. However, the old system failed by allowing the health insurance death panels to deny coverage to people with serious illnesses, and studies showed that led to their pre-mature death. That is a more serious problem than healthy young people paying 600 a year into the health ins. pool. If you're an unborn in the womb the right wing wants to save you, but if later that costs them 600 a year so we have a national health ins. system that will insure everyone, well you can just die. Doesn't make sense to me.
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The old system is the new system. The only thing the law changed was the reason you don't have insurance.

Reasons like single men have to pay for maternity coverage.

And the unintended consequences of bureaucrats, who have no idea how the real world works, continues:

Medicaid enrollment spike a threat to Obamacare structure? - CBS News

The disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov may have another serious problem: A CBS News analysis shows that in many of the 15 state-based health insurance exchanges more people are enrolling in Medicaid rather than buying private health insurance. And if that trend continues, there's concern there won't be enough healthy people buying health insurance for the system to work.

CBS News has confirmed that in Washington, of the more than 35,000 people newly enrolled, 87 percent signed up for Medicaid. In Kentucky, out of 26,000 new enrollments, 82 percent are in Medicaid. And in New York, of 37,000 enrollments, Medicaid accounts for 64 percent. And there are similar stories across the country in nearly half of the states that run their own exchanges.
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Fenton said:
Ask the people that have lost coverage for themselves and their dependants, who now have to go the exchanges and buy their own policoes with money they don't have.

Policies that have become extremely expensive because of all of those " guarantees" you stated.

Obama-Care is an absolute disaster through and through.
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Those canceled plans were individual policies.
 
finebead said:
And you seem to buy into the myth of
health ins. under the old system, that the cheap policy they could afford, which guaranteed would FAIL if they really needed it when they got a survivable cancer illness that required expensive long term care, that is an OK model. It is not; it is merely a myth that you have a good policy. You have a policy designed to GUARANTEE the heath ins. company a profit if nothing really bad happens to you, and FAILS for you if you get really sick and need a lot of care. That's simply a pathetic system. It's not a national healthcare system, its just a guaranteed profit system for the health ins. industry.
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You're using a small minority of situations to justify a massive takeover that will result in millions losing their coverage and or being forced to shop off of the exchanges for policies they can't afford.

The last time Govt stuck its nose into a large aspect of private enterprise it nearly cratered our economy.

Those "guarantees" you speak of under ACA are being financed by the middle class through higher premiums.

That's going to have drastic economic effects on the already sick economy.

The ACA was the worst possible option for "fixing" our health care industry, amd how anyone could have any faith in the competence of our current Presidential administration after the bungled release of the Obama Care website is beyond me.
 
donsutherland1 said:
At this time, it is too early to determine whether the ACA will lead to costly distortions in the health insurance market. A degree of risk exists, but much more data will be required to support evidence-based conclusions concerning that risk.

With respect to these early cancellations, at least two points are important:

1. Are policies being canceled simply because they don't contain all the required elements ("under-coverage" if you will) or for purposes of altering risk pools (adverse selection) to make them more profitable for the insurer. The News 4 article, which contains text from the Florida Blue press release, suggests the former.

2. When policies are canceled, do the former policyholders have a chance to enroll in new plans? Insurers cannot automatically enroll former policyholders into new plans by law and for ethical reasons. The News 4 piece suggests that former policyholders are being encouraged to speak with their insurance agents to enroll in the company's new plan, among other options. That further suggests that the adverse selection issue may not be involved, but again more data will be required before one can reach a firm conclusion e.g., cost barriers to the new policies will be important (if they are prohibitive, then adverse selection is playing a role; if they are commensurate with the added coverage on a net cost--or added cost reduced by the subsidy--then adverse selection is not a meaningful factor.
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Sir, please take all common sense and check it at the door. ;)
 
j-mac said:
And this is just one state....

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This is a disaster that was predicted, and the cancellations are dwarfing the sign ups....Thanks progressives, you are breaking the system. :doh:doh
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Yeah, and then they are going to buy plans that are better which will cost about the same or possibly less and have more regulations that protect them from insurance company dirty tricks. That was pretty much the plan if the old insurance company felt they could not give their customer's reasonable service for what they paid. I do not see anything now or anything to worry about here.
 
tererun said:
Yeah, and then they are going to buy plans that are better which will cost about the same or possibly less and have more regulations that protect them from insurance company dirty tricks. That was pretty much the plan if the old insurance company felt they could not give their customer's reasonable service for what they paid. I do not see anything now or anything to worry about here.
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Since the plans are "better", which means they cover more, you can be assured they cost more. Nothing is free.
 
tererun said:
Yeah, and then they are going to buy plans that are better which will cost about the same or possibly less and have more regulations that protect them from insurance company dirty tricks. That was pretty much the plan if the old insurance company felt they could not give their customer's reasonable service for what they paid. I do not see anything now or anything to worry about here.
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Simply not true..in fact, reports are that premiums have gone up. People will see, despite liberal attempts to hide the sticker shock...
 
Fenton said:
Ask the people that have lost coverage for themselves and their dependants, who now have to go the exchanges and buy their own policoes with money they don't have.

Policies that have become extremely expensive because of all of those " guarantees" you stated.

Obama-Care is an absolute disaster through and through.
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We'll disagree on the definition of extremely expensive until more data is available. Maybe you can cite some specifics. But it is extremely more valuable to have a policy that can't be cancelled if you get cancer and need a lot of care, right?

I don't think we can say Obamacare is a disaster yet, unless you are a political operative talking your side.

All the people who were rejected by the health ins. company death panels due to their pre-existing conditions seem very happy, and they have signed up. That is success, not disaster.
 
Samhain said:
Since the plans are "better", which means they cover more, you can be assured they cost more. Nothing is free.
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That may or may not be the case. Due to subsidies and restrictions on how much they have to have paid out for medical costs or else they are legally forced to give you a refund it may be less. Why don't you look for yourself instead of bitchin about something you have not even tried. God, why do I feel like a parent trying to get some overly picky kids to eat some food they have never tried before but I know they would probably like if they had it?
 
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