Official tells US health insurer to justify 39 pct rate hike
AFP
Official tells US health insurer to justify 39 pct rate hike AFP/Getty Images/File – US Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, seen here in January 2010, called on Monday …
2 hrs 28 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Monday called on a health insurance company to publicly explain why it raised premiums for some customers by 39 percent.
"With so many families already affected by rising costs, I was very disturbed to learn through media accounts that Anthem Blue Cross plans to raise premiums for its California customers by as much as 39 percent," or 15 times faster than inflation, Sebelius said in a letter that was faxed to the insurer.
The rate hikes were "even more difficult to understand" in the light of soaring profits at Anthem Blue Cross's parent company, WellPoint Incorporated, Sebelius said.
Wellpoint earned 2.7 billion dollars in the last quarter of 2009, she said, calling on the insurance company to "provide a detailed justification" for the increase.
"As we continue the health insurance reform debate in Washington, this announcement reminds us that too many Americans can be left with unaffordable insurance each time the rates or rules change in the private market," Sebelius said.
Last month, plans to reform the US health care system hit a wall when the election of a Republican to the Senate Massachusetts seat long held by Ted Kennedy robbed the Democrats of their 60-vote supermajority in the Senate.
President Barack Obama vowed during his campaign for the White House to reform health care and make coverage accessible to the 47 million Americans who currently do not have any, and to make coverage less of a financial drain on US workers.
Last year, the insurance industry issued a report saying that health care reforms would lead to significantly higher insurance premiums. Obama dismissed the report as "bogus".
The FC libs are such pathetic sheep. The Democrats had 60 votes once Franken was seated. They could have passed ANYTHING they wanted and no Republican could have stopped them. The Democratic party could not unite around a plan. Of course Republicans didn't help them, they're the opposition. And the plan the Democrats came up with had nothing in it to lure a moderate Republican into switching sides. It was the shittiest possible bill.
If they'd come up with a popular bill they could have kept their disloyal members in line and peeled off Olympia Snow to make it bipartisan.
But no, they had to listen to the insurance lobbyists instead. Great work, guys, you blew a SURE THING.
Liberals rejoiced that the Repubublicans had been made irrelevant for a generation. A year later, they are blaming an irrelevant minority for their failure to get anything done. Hilarious irony that an educated, liberal blue state owned the fuck out of them, yet they still cant figure it out.
WAAAHH! REPUKES! THEY HATES US!! THEY DONT WANT PEOPLE TO SEE DOCTORS!!! MY PRECIOUS!!! IT BURNS!!!
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They could have easily included a public option, and later versions of the bill included the terms that "children with pre-existing conditions" couldn't be excluded.
And the deal was, we'll allow you to ass-rape everyone as long as you dump the pre-existing condition clauses, that wasn't enough, now we bring in the "children" bullshit.
Blue Cross mostly provides health insurance to worthless local government employees, so get ready for a property tax hike to keep your abusive cops and brain dead shovel leaners flush with zero co-payment healthcare.
Posted 2/9/2010 2:14 am
A lot of the people voting for Brown were old people afraid that there medicare was going to be taken away in the proposed health care reform. The Republicans were successful in scaring them.
Posted 2/9/2010 2:17 am
The Republicans just love insurance companies. And the ins companies now know its open season on the suckers who have to buy medical insurance.
You think single issue voters vote Republican? AYRTS?
This was clearly a knee jerk reaction by white moderates feeling buyers remorse after getting suckered in by Hope and Change. Expect a lot more where that came from in the 2010 elections.
SENILE GRANDMOTHERS WHO VOTED FOR KENNEDYS FOR 50 YEARS WERE TRICKED AT THE VOTING BOOTH BY EVIL REPUBLICANS!
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I know all sorts of moderate leaning people who bought into Hopeys bullshit in 2008. Every single one of them has seen through the talk and wised up now.
Posted 2/9/2010 2:38 am
I realized this would happen several weeks ago. With the health care reform bill dead, the health insurance companies are really going to give it to the consumer by jacking up rates far above the 12% a year they've averaged for the last 20 years or so.
Posted 2/9/2010 3:15 am
Bwahahahaha......getting closer to the day when those thieves price themselves out of business. No insurance companies=real healthcare reform
The FC libs are such pathetic sheep. The Democrats had 60 votes once Franken was seated. They could have passed ANYTHING they wanted and no Republican could have stopped them. The Democratic party could not unite around a plan. Of course Republicans didn't help them, they're the opposition. And the plan the Democrats came up with had nothing in it to lure a moderate Republican into switching sides. It was the shittiest possible bill. 
