Alright, wanting to throw this out there to get some insight into what people think because there's an aspect of this bill that makes zero sense to me. The Democrats and Obama have repeatedly told us this is going to bring premiums down, however I see it as nothing but an attempt to be able to continue to demonize the insurance industry for simply being smart businessmen. Here's what I mean...
Say you are a businessman, and you produce a product. Doesn't matter what the product is, be it tangable or a service, but you produce it.
You currently sell it for "X" amount of money
The government then passes regulation and legislation that is going to cause the basic cost associated with what determines the price of your product up substantially, but it is not going to happen for another 4 years. At this time however there will also be mechanisms in place where they could exert control over how much you sell your product for.
So, as this businessman do you:
1. Not raise your prices at all currently, or in the next four years, until such time that the regulations come into play. At that point you raise it to cover the increase in cost and hope the government doesn't lower it on you.
2. Raise your prices slowly and steadily over the next few so that by the time regulations come into place you're already at the threshold to afford it with a little backlog of funds incase the government chooses to lower your price.
3. Raise your prices at a relatively fast pace over the next few years above what would be needed to cover the regulations, with the belief that its likely the government will require you to sell your product at a lower price and hoping that by being more expensive at that point the lower price will actually be higher than it would be if you were right on the money with cost.
To me, personally, option 2 would be my prefered method if I was running a business, with 3 being more prefered over 1. One seems suicidal, placing all trust in the government not meddling This meddling wording I srongly disagree with.and that your customers won't have an issue with an enormous price increase.
This is my issue with Health Care currently.
Soon, Insurance Companies are going to have to be insuring people with preconditions. To me, this is like Las Vegas having to give the Indianapolis Colts the same odds at winning the Super Bowl as the Cleveland Browns. People with previous conditions are more likely to incur expenses, and typically more costly expenses, at a lot quicker rate meaning that they're far more likely that they get out more than they put in. This raises the general operating costs of Insurance Companies. This is just one of numerous potential things that will likely end up raising the operating costs associated with the cost of medical care for Insurance Companies.
This is especially true if one could hold off on getting insurance until they discover they have cancer, and then are legally required to be given insurance at that point, as an example.
If the costs to be able to provide Insurance go up, then premiums will have to raise to cover the business expense. If they don't then the Insurance Companies can not function and would have to close up shop (which of course would set the stage to say "oh, well the government needs to take over", but that's a different story). So, IF the Insurance Agency's are to survive, prices MUST go up.
Which then begs the question, should we expect the prices to rise only in the future or start rising now? And IF they start rising is that the fault of the "greedy" Insurance Companies or of the government for putting into place the situation that makes them HAVE to raise their premiums if they want to remain in business.
So, there's my question to you all, with the reasoning behind it (So its not a baiting question)....
In the hypothetical above, if you're the business owner, would you raise prices in 4 years, slowly raise prices in the intermediate years, or quickly raise prices in the intermediate years.
