More Health Care Hijinks

by: Song

Wed Mar 31, 2010 at 08:14:33 AM MST

Link Here

As we discuss HCR for the next few years, something to think about when dealing with Insurance Companies.  They are for profit, their focus is to make profit.  Not to provide competent care, not to provide a valuable service, not anything else, except in service of profit.  The shareholders have rights too and to hell with those sick people.  I know, that is hyperbole, but its starting to look like they are thinking along those lines.  The Insurance companies are looking to extract as much as they can before they have to provide any form of reimbursement or payment for claims.

In the short run, companies are expected to keep doing what they've been doing, which means, among other things, jacking up their rates. "There's nothing to stop them from raising their premiums, and that's what they're going to do," said [Marcia Angell, a former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine who now teaches at Harvard Medical School], a supporter of "single-payer" health insurance.

More below the fold.

What else will the industry do? "The companies will certainly be tightening up internal practices to avoid paying claims," Potter said. "One way to do that is to make it more burdensome on providers and make it more difficult for providers to get the reimbursements that they're due. They already are difficult to work with for a lot of providers."

The more burdensome the paperwork, the more likely a provider is to make a mistake. "And if they make a mistake, the claim is kicked out," Potter said.

One of my favorites that I've said is the danger of a mandate to get care without providing controls on premiums.

One provision she expects them to exploit is the one allowing companies to charge as much as 50 percent more for people who engage in unhealthy behaviors. "With anyone who's chronically ill, you can always find an unhealthy behavior," she said.

"So that's the new preexisting condition."

Angell also pointed out that there's been very little coverage of the fact that insurance companies will still be allowed to charge older people (over age 55) much more than younger people. Three times as much, to be precise.

As a result, people between ages 55 and 65 (when Medicare kicks in) who don't have enough income to pay high premiums will be left with two options: Not buying insurance and being hit with a fine; or paying premiums they can't afford.

Thats right, we created a law giving the insurance companies a few million new customers, so the insurance companies are going to use that part of the law as justification to raise rates.  If that isn't just a handy great FU.