Health Insurers Win Delay on Start of $70 Billion in Added Fees

[depakid]

Source: Bloomberg

UnitedHealth Group Inc., WellPoint Inc. and smaller U.S. insurers gained a year under Senate Democrats’ proposed health-care legislation before the start of a tax that industry lobbyists say will drive up premiums.

The measure proposed yesterday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would also exempt some nonprofit insurers from the tax, shifting more of the burden to the for-profit companies, said Elizabeth Hall, a vice president at Indianapolis-based WellPoint. Device makers won a postponement of a proposed levy, while drugmakers would see no change in their taxes. A possible tax on cosmetic surgery was abandoned.

The insurer tax, amounting to about $70 billion over 10 years, was to start next year under a previous version of the Senate measure. That would have forced insurers to take $6.7 billion out of profit, since they’ve already signed contracts setting rates for 2010, said Matthew Borsch, a New York-based analyst for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., in a Dec. 16 interview. The new version also postpones more of the tax until after other parts of the health overhaul kick in.

Without the change, Borsch said, 2010 earnings per share at UnitedHealth, based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, would have been cut 25 percent, while those at WellPoint would have been diminished 28 percent.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=asyq1HrjE1LY&pos=2

[dflprincess]

1. They haven't signed contracts for policies that renew in June or July

the two biggest months for renewals after January. This gives them plenty of time to raise premiums on those groups to help them make up for any additional expenses in 2011.

[emilyg]

2. I'm waiting for

that "friendly" letter from BC any day now.

[customerserviceguy]

12. Congress clearly didn't want to have those rates raised

just before the 2010 election.

[dysfunctional press]

15. or even the 2012 selections, either.

this administration is worse than worthless.

[PSPS]

3. "Senate Democrats’ proposed health-care legislation"

UnitedHealth Group Inc., WellPoint Inc. and smaller U.S. insurers gained a year under Senate Democrats’ proposed health-care legislation before the start of a tax that industry lobbyists say will drive up premiums.

And thus it will be forever remembered despite having its contents dictated by "president" lieberman and assorted other republicans.

[MessiahRp]

4. The headline should just end at: "Health Insurers Win".

Since they have gotten everything they could ever dream of here.

Rp

[coti]

6. "....Again." nt

[maryinthemorn]

11. +1

[coti]

5. Oh, well thank God for that! nt

[scentopine]

7. "will drive up premiums" - those sleazy mother fuckers

They've jacked up premiums by over 100% in last few years - now they hold us hostage and say "you want more of this...?"

Our dem leadership quivers and shakes in the most cowardly fashion.

[Earth_First]

8. How is it that the pharmaceutical companies are exempt?

:shrug:

[Jefferson23]

9. Never in my life have I ever thought my children may need to move to another

country in order to live a life free from such extortion from ones government. This is very discouraging for me, seems to get worse not better all the time. This is the one domestic issue I thought Obama would never drop, that he would fight and spend a substantial amount of political capital. Now people like me who disagree against this are considered the "fringe far left" crowd."

Words just fail to describe my disappointment.

[edc]

10. Indeed

For the first time in our history our won government will compel individual citizens to purchase a product from a for profit industry and to subsidize that purchase with taxes, all in the name of reform. I wonder what reform comes next?

[depakid]

14. "I wonder what reform comes next?" -financial regulation

which, thanks to the Obama administration's failure to push for reconciliation- will be held hostage by every two bit corrupt extortionist in the Senate.

[edc]

16. The Senate has become a horror movie

caricature of democracy. It is a charnel house where progressive legislation is murdered, dismembered and stitched back together with lots of reactionary body parts and then reanimated as a monster.

[wordpix]

13. well, that just put me over the top---I'm in Dean's camp now

KILL THE BILL