Will Obamacare succeed where term limits failed?

[ICantSpellDawg]

I am shocked, shocked that healthcare insurers are using the changes to lie to their customers and try to force them into more expensive plans.

The insurance companies argue that it's simply capitalism at work. [...] By warning customers that their health insurance plans are being canceled as a result of Obamacare and urging them to secure new insurance plans before the Obamacare launched on Oct. 1, these insurers put their customers at risk of enrolling in plans that were not as good or as affordable as what they could buy on the marketplaces.

TPM has confirmed two specific examples where companies contacted their customers prior to the marketplace's Oct. 1 opening and pushed them to renew their health coverage at a higher price than they would pay through the marketplace. State regulators identified the schemes, but they weren't necessarily able to stop them.

It's not yet clear how widespread this practice became in the months leading up to the marketplace's opening -- or how many Americans will end up paying more than they should be for health coverage. But misleading letters have been sent out in at least four states across the country, and one offending carrier, Humana, is a company with a national reach. [...]

The most troubling part of the Humana case is that the company was pushing customers into a Humana insurance plan that was more expensive than the plan Humana was selling on the Obamacare marketplace, without the financial help available under Obamcare.

Traditionally, State Insurance Departments were developed to stop insurance companies from jacking rates without rational cause. Now that insurance policies are commodities that must be purchased by law, they aren't worried about losing business, and the 1000 pages of cost increases has given them Carte Blanche to spike rates without SID oversight. Hey, If the government was handing out money to private business, I'd raise my prices too.

The reality is this: the new requirements will increase claims payouts. Individuals will not sign up until the last possible minute in the event that they are ever able to. Claim costs will increase immediately, premiums will trickle in. Large numbers won't offset the loss ratio for some time. State and Federal insurance commissioners are to give the insurance industry time and leniency to pad their numbers and ensure that they are solvent, hence the large spikes in cost. Costs which will never go down, only slow in growth as people enter the market.

The idea that the bill was called the "affordable health care act" was a sham. It is affordable for no one. Has anyone signed up yet?