What’s on your menu? Just got off the phone with my health care provider asking them to explain why my premium jumped up. No good answer!
— Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) February 27, 2013
(Thanks to the reader who sent this along.)
Gosh, How Did That Happen?
Posted in Hathos. Tagged Donna Brazile.
36 Responses to Gosh, How Did That Happen?
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alkali says:
Because they never went up before 2010?
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Sir Humphrey Appleby says:
Of course this year had the lowest rate of health care cost increases since 1998 – can we attribute that to Obamacare or are only anecdotes allowed? *smirk*
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M_Young says:
Mind did too — about 8.5%
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Noah172 says:
In the 2000 election, Al Gore lost eight states that had voted twice for the Clinton-Gore ticket, including his own home state (the first such occurence since the McGovern debacle) and Clinton’s. Any one of those states would have tipped the election to Gore even without Florida.
Gosh, how did that happen? Maybe we should ask his campaign manager….
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collin says:
And it is another cold winter day in Minnesota. Healthcare cost have always had an absurd amountof lack of transparecy.
CR
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“lowest rate of healthcare costs increases”
Uh, this story seems to be based on data from 2011 (i.e. before Obamacare), and it is about healthcare spending rather than costs — not the same thing at all. We’ve been through a recession with a very weak recovery, people are putting off spending on their healthcare. Further, Obamacare is expected to increase healthcare spending, apparently.
‘The respite means President Barack Obama and lawmakers in Congress have a window to ease in tighter cost controls this year, if they can manage to reach a broader agreement on taxes and spending. Health spending is projected to spike up again in 2014, as Obama’s law covering the uninsured takes full effect, before settling down to a new normal.
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Jason C. says:
I don’t know about premiums, but I love having no idea whatsoever how much something is going to cost on those rare (thanks be to God!) occasions when a member of my family goes to the doctor or hospital. Even having kids two years apart resulted in widely different costs; this procedure covered here, not covered there; surprises on the bills, etc.
How long, Lord?
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Tyro says:
Hm. I don’t know. Rod, can you tell us?
Noah wins the thread.
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MH - Secular Misanthropist says:
Healthcare cost have always had an absurd amountof lack of transparecy.
Holy smokes is that so true. The provider charges X, so the insurer reimburses X/2. So the provider figures this out and charges X+C knowing that the insurer will reimburse (X+C)/2. But the insurer is wise to this game so they invent reasonable and customary charge Y and reimburse Y/2.
Uninsured J Random Consumer walks in off the street and gets charged X+C because the provider is required to charge them what they charge the insurer even though they know they never get paid that amount.
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Sam M says:
Donna Brazil ought to know that health care providers are not health care insureres. Health insurance is not health care.
You call your insurer to ask about premium increase. Not your provider.
This is not nitpicking. This is actually a really important distinction.
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RockinRobbie says:
Premiums are going up everywhere because insurance companies can no longer foist subpar “cheap” insurance (i.e., the low caps and whatnot that cause people WITH health insurance to end up going bankrupt because they still end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills). Thus, the insurance companies are passing that cost on to everyone.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow but if we want health insurance to actually, you know, cover our health care costs, it’s necessary unless and until the actual cost of healthcare is driven down (i.e., enforcing Medicare rate cost controls).
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Scott S says:
Here’s a handy chart showing explosive medical insurance rates… from 2006.
http://monthlyreview.org/wp-content/uploads/old/2008/080201singer-chart1.jpg
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theOtherWill says:
read this and be outraged:
http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/
One night last summer at her home near Stamford, Conn., a 64-year-old former sales clerk whom I’ll call Janice S. felt chest pains. She was taken four miles by ambulance to the emergency room at Stamford Hospital, officially a nonprofit institution. After about three hours of tests and some brief encounters with a doctor, she was told she had indigestion and sent home. That was the good news.
The bad news was the bill: $995 for the ambulance ride, $3,000 for the doctors and $17,000 for the hospital — in sum, $21,000 for a false alarm.
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/#ixzz2M8YuEgJc
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Myron Hudson says:
Our health care premiums increased by a large margin once again, as they always have, as far as I can remember. This I attribute to the turning of calendar pages. And possibly El Nino, the coriolus effect and space aliens.
Thanks for sharing Donna Brazile’s humor!
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Linda says:
Look at the history of health insurance cost before blaming Obamacare, which provides much better preventive coverage than many health insurance policies previously covered.
The following links provides a good beginning for documenting root causes for why health insurance/health care cost way more than it should. The health care lobby buying Congress and the excessive pay for health insurance executives has already been well documented.
“We now spend 20 percent of our GDP—an estimated $2.8 trillion for 2013—on health care. It’s time to cut through the policy debate and follow the money. A special report on why our medical bills are so expensive.”
Health Insurance: Bitter Pill Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us Time 2-20-13
By Steven Brill Feb. 20, 2013The Kindest Cut: How One Hospital Lowered Costs by Making Doctors More Budget Conscious
Feb. 20, 2013 -
M.B. says:
It WILL be scary if healthcare gets more expensive and corrupt in this country. Because before Obamacare passed it had reached a point when many of us thought it couldn’t get more expensive and corrupt. Hoping Obamacare will fail means hoping that even more middle and working-class Americans get even more screwed. Like, kids. And families. I know a family now about to lose their coverage because their yearly income went from 24k per year to 26k. They have a three year old boy with health problems.
So, yeah. Rah rah. Go team.
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Who’s running this blog, and what have you done to Rod Dreher?
(He’s usually more thoughtful, more insightful, more analytical, and more fact-based than this, and he’s not at all coy about what he means to say.)
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Susan D. says:
One reason it went up is because it’s very expensive for health insurers to administer their products. It’s not just figuring out how to configure their products to be ACA compliant; there are also insurance regulations that vary from state to state. It means updated software that can service the demands that changing regulations make. It means upgrading hardware to work with the more intricate claims processing and accounting software. It means training expenses for employees who use the software every day. It means having a department of Compliance and Government affairs with a staff that interprets the law and deals with sometime conflicting regulations. It means negotiating payment contracts with healthcare providers. It means maintaining a reserve of operating capital so that claims can be paid. And all this barely scratches the surface.
Disclaimer: I work for a not-for-profit medical insurance company associated with a medical system.
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John says:
Mine stayed flat for the first time in 4 years. That fact proves as much as her tweet.
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alex says:
Weird, I think, that Rod has this posted in the “hathos” category. Why would he derive pleasure from increased premiums?
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cka2nd says:
Thank you for contributing your knowledge and expertise to this discussion, Susan D.
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Connie says:
What happened to the Lake Wobegon post? It no longer shows on the first page.
[Note from Rod: Huh? That post went up ages ago. I noticed that you'd commented on it, and after approving your comment, wondered why you had been reading so far back. Seems like a glitch. -- RD]
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steve says:
Costs were up 4.1% in 2012, the least in 15 years, for employer based health insurance. This was also accompanied by an increase in the percentage of employers offering coverage, mostly among small businesses (55% to 59%).
http://www.mercer.com/press-releases/1491670
For the first time in my 40 years in medicine, I am actually seeing provider driven efforts to cut costs, mostly in response to cuts coming due to the ACA. This is different than what happened with HMOs in the 90s when insurance companies just denied care. This is being done while emphasizing quality more than has been the case in the past.
Steve
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My premium has gone up every single year for over a decade; not once has it remained flat. What does that prove? What a hoot! Nothing to see here.
Jim
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Mary Russell says:
Your thing with AT&T last year has nothing on American health care bureaucracy. Best I can say is try to stay healthy, because you will quickly be driven mental by dealing with your insurer.
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JonF says:
Since the ACA’s insurance regs have yet to take effect, and since healthcare inflation has slowed nicely (if only because of the Great Recession) it sounds like the insurers are making hay while the sun shines, since after this year they won’t be able to get away with this sort of naked profiteering.
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Bugg says:
This whole supply and demand economics thingie bedevils the left eternally. But 50%+ of Americans really ebelvied they could get somthieng for nothing.
Wait until doctors start refusing Meidicaid patients in 3….2….1…..
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Pilgrim says:
Maybe she should stop _Cooking With Grease_!
(her autobiography/memoir)Donna is always fun to watch. I enjoy hearing her opinions, even when I don’t agree with them.
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Fran Macadam says:
Whatta Country, as Yakov Smirnoff used to observe.
It’s as dysfunctional as anything anywhere in the world.
Outright legalized thievery. A rogue capitalist society held together by mutual attempts to rip each other off.
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df says:
Folks, this article is long, but an absolute must-read as to the extravagant costs of healthcare in US:
http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/
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Scott says:
Health care is expensive because it can be a life and death product; who’s going to ask for a second opinion when the ems says you need to go to the hospital because you might be having a heart attack? Also, unless you are a physician, it would be very hard to be an informed shopper. No, Doc, I don’t really believe that’s cancer. I’m not going to buy ypir product. and … health care providers can charge what they want because the demand for their services are sky high. we need single payer health care.
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JonF, even assuming that none of the ACA’s insurance regs have gone into effect (which is incorrect, by the way), it takes time, effort, and money to configure systems for administering those requirements. My company has been working on them for two years already, and will continue to need to do so. It’s difficult and expensive; you can’t just flip a magic switch and make everything work properly, especially when the interpretation of the regulations changes constantly. (And don’t get me started on dealing with the hugely expanded number of procedure and diagnostic codes…) It’s just nuts and most of us at my workplace know it. I asked my manager how in the world all this would contain costs and improve patient care. She shook her head.
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SusanD,
I used to work in health insurance IT. I am well aware of the effort involved. However I think you are overstating the case. Most of the ACA’s regs involve membership issues, and they simplify the steps (less complex ratings; no black-balling) rather than complicate them. Claims payment itself (where the true complexity lies) is little affected, ditto the precert/authorization system.
One concrete question I have for you: how many people have you hired, including temps, to modify the software*? Or are you just telling your existing employees to get to work rather than browsing blogs all day?
Due to my experience I will actually defend the hated health insurers when unfair and ignorant accusations are made about them. However I don’t credit that ACA is responsible for these ridiculous premium increases, except in the sense that it was sparked a rush to inflate premiums as high as they can go before the law puts a crimp in that strategy.* Of course it’s possible your company just uses off-the-shelf software in which case you have a one-time expense for a major upgrade.
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Jon, I said in my original comment that the ACA is a factor in the increased cost of insurance, not the only one. I have no control over hiring, but yes, there are contracted employers working on configuration for upcoming changes. The software we use needs customization because it can’t take into account the differences in every conceivable coverage scenario in every state, let alone every insurer.
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Jon, I said in my original comment that the ACA is a factor in the increased cost of insurance, not the only one.
That’s kind of an unfalsifiable assertion, isn’t it? Given that health care inflation is the lowest it’s been in a while, it’s hard to blame the ACA, though.
Everyone whines about paperwork and compliance. Only in health care to the employees act like it is some kind of unfathomable burden for which the economy has never seen before.
The sun also rose in the East this morning.