They are correct to believe that. The risk pools skewed up with the mandate, as well the mandatory coverages added to cost. The bill was a turd and just about everything agents have been warning against is coming forth.
Well, I could sell a single twenty something a policy for around 110 a month with a decent deductible when I started around nine years agoe and now it's around 3 to 4 hundred with the most dramatic increases being this year. Of course coverage was getting more expensive before but that doesn't dismiss what is happening because of the bill. I will tell you, just about every cost increase was due to some government reg. along the chain.
Actually, if you want criminal charges you'll have to dig further. The HMO debacle was started in the '70s under a bill sponsored by the late senator Ted Kennedy, prices spiked around the nineties with the regulatory burden, states have ridiculous mandatory coverages on top of that, Pelosi and Reid along with every yea vote and signatory of Obamacare should honestly be in prison for their parts of the latest bill, it was grossly negligent market interference that would have landed a private businessman in jail
One bad CEO does not an industry make. Blaming him would be like blaming the insurance industry for the failure of AIG.
Well, again he may have been less than ethical, but then again so is forcing economically deadly regs. on an industry. The difference is that one bad company can be replaced by it's consumers but bad regs. force bad industry standards. I'll tell anyone who will listen, I was trained in the stuff and what I saw from compliance was a complete load, thousands of unnecessary steps just to keep federal and state regulators happy, get that out of the way and you have a less expensive product.
I can't agree with any of this. Health insurers are a massive bearaucray due to what must be done to satisfy governmnet policies, that is just a fact. There are some lousy CEOs in the health industry but it isn't as prevalent as you think, the "profit margins" that people like to demonize as well are lower than most industries, around 6%. This bill does have some minor good but it's far outweighed by a lot of crap. For instance the old standard 80/20 OOP model is now illegal due to federal statute and now it's an 85/15, this means the companies must increase their output up to deductible and out of pocket which leads to slimmer margin of error, this gets passed directly to the consumer. There are ways to fix the industry but government isn't listening to the people who know how such as agents, physicians, and payors.
Some ladies are often a bit parched down below mmkay? Also... srsly, there are break resistant condom available. If not at your local drug store than on the vast selection offered by the interwebs.
It's not a socialist/capitalist argument here. My godfather is a physician and did the same thing, he'd barter his fee as well when he had people unable to pay, he'd take anything from a home cooked dinner to ducks killed, etc. and now that is actually not permitted under many state and federal laws(which is ridiculous). It was also cheaper to insure back then because it was less expensive to treat, now hospitals have to make up for losses at the ER and other regulatory issues and hit insurers who have the deep pockets. To do the right thing by a poor patient a doctor has to waive his fee. The economics of government encroachment make it impossible for the industry to provide the best service at a fair price and it needs to change by quality ideas rather than quantity ideas.
Fair enough.