Why is My Health Insurance Premiums Rising?

It is all in the new healthcare reform why prices in premiums are souring. It is the timeline in which the landscaping changes take place in our health system, none of which starts until 2014. Until then insurance companies are not being regulated or force to insure high risks, with no raise in premiums. Insurance companies are gaining profits in the front end of the plan, knowing that these margins will never be as great after 2014.

Here is what the plan details that year:

In 2014, most of the bill's most heralded benefits take effect. This is the year when the state insurance exchanges go on-line, with subsidized coverage available in the form of tax credits, and when Medicaid will be expanded to cover individuals making up to 133 percent of the Federal poverty level (currently about $28,300 for a family of four).

Insurers will be prohibited from denying coverage to adults with pre-existing conditions and charging higher premiums to individuals with chronic conditions starting this year, and they will be required to cover maternity care the same as all other medical procedures.

Furthermore, this year mandates kick in: individuals who do not have insurance and cannot prove hardship will pay a $95 fine, rising to $695 by 2016. Families without insurance will pay fines of up to $2,250, indexed for inflation after 2016. Employers with more than 50 employees that have any employees enrolled in subsidized coverage through the exchanges will pay a penalty of $2000 times the number of workers employed minus 30.

Some say that the Presidential Administration planned it this way for us to grow in rage towards insurance companies, but that would suggest Obama is despairing the people to bring his point home. I am more inclined to believe that the bill was pushed through to quickly without weighing all the cause and effects within the context of the complexities in stakeholders within our health system.

When you introduce change, it must come with the new restraints at the very beginning of implementation not wait four long years later. Because of this lack of vision, the bill is causing another crises in an already struggling economy. I dare say but this is just the beginning of the premium hikes, and increasing health care cost do to a flawed bill.

Reference:

Smith, Sandy (2010) Health care bill summery and timeline. Retrieved on September, 9, 2010, from http://www.huliq.com/8738/92142/health-care-bill-summary-and-timeline