I personally do not have health insurance because I cannot afford it. But our family’s health insurance went up 39% this year, and that was before we added a baby to the mix. Just as the President describes, we got a letter and ‘bam’ our rates had nearly doubled.
EXCERPTS OF THE PRESIDENT’S REMARKS ON HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM TODAY AT ARCADIA UNIVERSITY
As Prepared for DeliveryEvery year, insurance companies deny more people coverage because they have a pre-existing condition. Every year, they drop more people’s coverage when they’re sick and need it most. Every year, they raise premiums higher and higher. Just last month, Anthem Blue Cross in California tried to jack up rates by nearly 40%. In my home state of Illinois rates are going up by as much as 60%. And you just heard from Leslie, who was hit with a 100% rate increase. 100%. One letter from her insurance company and her premiums doubled. Just like that.
You see, these insurance companies have made a calculation. The other day, on a conference call organized by Goldman Sachs, an insurance broker told Wall Street investors that insurance companies know they will lose customers if they keep raising premiums. But since there’s so little competition in the insurance industry, they’re ok with people being priced out of health insurance because they’ll still make more by raising premiums on the customers they have. And they will keep doing this for as long as they can get away with it.
So how much higher do premiums have to rise until we do something about it? How many more Americans have to lose their health insurance? How many more businesses have to drop coverage? How many more years can the federal budget handle the crushing costs of Medicare and Medicaid? When is the right time for health insurance reform?
These massive hikes are going on in the individual market where people have to go out on their own and ask a private insurance corporation for insurance. For people who get their insurance through their employer, the hikes have not been as dramatic. And. because most people get their insurance through their employer, they don’t see what is happening to the self-employed and unemployed and those whose employer’s don’t provide health care insurance. I think this is one of the main reasons that polling suggests that the American people are skeptical about Obama’s health care reforms. It’s good for Obama to highlight these cases because they are educational, but I think he will get the most mileage by educating people about how much their employer-based insurance has gone up and how that is related to their stagnant wages and salaries. Technically, that information is readily available if people examine their paycheck stubs and calculate their pay increases over the last decade. But, most people don’t bother. They suffer in silence and, to some degree, ignorance, of the true cost of health care inflation in their lives. To crack public opinion, you need to let people know how badly they’re being screwed because a lot of people don’t realize how much money they’re losing.
And since we are on the topic, I rely on your generosity to be able to run this blog and yet I still don’t make enough to get health insurance. I had hoped that by now we’d have passed something through Congress that would enable to buy something I can afford, but that hasn’t happened because of the massive resistance of the Republican Party. So, I am asking you to please consider making a donation to the site not only to help me keep it up and running, but so that maybe I can get a policy that will cover me in case I get sick. Two things this year have really made me worried about this. I turned 40 years old, and I became a father for the first time.. Those types of things get you thinking about your mortality. And thank you to everyone who has ever supported the site. I can’t thank you enough.
…could be as an indirect political contribution….
You pay the Insurance company, they pay the Lobbyist, who then greases the palm of the Legislator…..
….sigh…I’d much prefer getting rid of the middle-men and paying my legislators personally to do my bidding…..
Commercially-sponsored Congress is a drag
as i remarked elsewhere, words without actions don’t matter very much.
the president is using the senate bill as the template for his own: where is the repeal of anti-trust exemptions? where is the public option that provides competition for these massive corporate entities that can double your premium (my employers switched to aetna when blue cross did that to us earlier this year)? and without
these are just a couple of questions i have. and, you can’t blame the absence of these cost controls on the republicans. they have been obstructionist bastards, this is true, but the democrats haven’t exactly showered themselves in glory here.
we could have this argument until the end of time, but I simply don’t see where the votes are (or could have been) for a public option based on what I’ve seen out of people like Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu. We can theorize about how they might have been convinced to support one, but it’s only a theory. Frankly, we’ll be lucky to pass even the oatmeal that the Senate produced.
but see, that’s my damn problem.
why call attention to the president’s statements if there’s no way in hell the actions necessary to make them reality can ever happen?
when it was Bush saying “mars bitches!” everyone laughed because it just wasn’t going to happen.
But when Obama says something equally unfeasible (if much more pressing a concern), everyone applauds as if talking is the same as doing. i mean, you say this (and this isn’t an attack or anything, just an observation):
but if the senate won’t pass legislation that prevents this and waters down reforms until they’re meaningless, wtf is the point of speechifying? he might as well be saying “mars, bitches!”
As far as I am concerned he got pretty far with the public option. The House passed one, which was mighty impressive, and the Senate led with one, which I think was a procedural mistake (and so did the White House and Rahm Emanuel, BTW). The only way to even pass it, from my point of view, was to pass it in reconciliation. I wish they would do it now, but it appears they simply can’t muster the votes for it. And, considering that, I approve of Obama’s approach. We need to cover people (like me), and we need the reforms to help people who are sick or who get sick and can’t collect. So, no, the public option was not a make or break issue, even though it would have been much wiser, better politically, and saved a lot of money. It would also be better morally.
i don’t disagree with you on these.
But that’s not what i am objecting to.
I’m a partner in a small business. Our insurance rates went up 30% this year. This puts us right on the edge of having to drop a staffer or provide health insurance.
Another rate increase will mean a staffer goes. We have too many people who are older and have chronic health issues; we can’t be without insurance.
We have trillions for Goldman-Sachs and the rest of the investment banks, zilch for the middle class.
We need better Democrats in Congress.