$44,000 a year for health insurance? USA Today

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2006-12-05-cigna-rate-hikes_x.htm?csp=34

$44,000 a year for health insurance?

By Julie Appleby, USA TODAY
Hundreds of entertainment industry workers in California and New Jersey who buy health insurance as a group are being hit with a rate increase that will raise some family-plan premiums to more than $44,000 a year.

Insurer Cigna will raise rates for members of the group, which includes some in the Screen Actors Guild, an average of 82% in California and 65% in New Jersey next year.

Under the new rates, the most expensive plan in California will cost a family $3,685 a month, $44,220 a year. Less-expensive HMO plans will cost families $24,624. In New Jersey, an HMO will cost $10,260 a year for a single person and $30,372 for a family.

The rates illustrate the tremendous range of price increases that can hit a business, association or individual, even when the average national premium increase is just over 6%.

"Sadly, this happens to medium-sized businesses all the time, but they don't make the news," says Peter Lee, head of the Pacific Business Group on Health, a coalition of large employers.

Affected by the Cigna rate increase are about 1,100 members of 30 different guilds and associations who buy insurance through the Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust, a Clifton Park, N.Y.-based multiple-employer insurance broker. The trust offers the group insurance policies to association members, a mix of small businesses and sole proprietors.


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[dsc]

1. That is outrageous

I don't make that much money.

[blueraven95]

19. if you are an actor, chances are really good that you don't make that.

[Greyhound]

25. Something on the order of 98% of SAG members make...

<$20,000 per year. How long will we put up with this corporate looting? Will we wait until they have bankrupt the whole country?

[fuzzyball]

31. It positively won't bankrupt the whole country....

cuz the premiums are not vanishing in thin air.
The money is going into someone's pocket. For example
all who work in health insurance industry, hospitals
& doctors get paid by the insurance company. Even
litigation lawyers get paid by the insurance.

So you see, the money stays in circulation.

[whistle]

2. Yes, but the Bush administration still claims that inflation is just 3%

[Jackpine Radical]

5. ...and they're right, f course, provided you don't include

those "highly volatile" fripperies like gas, home heating, food, and health insurance.

[SmokingJacket]

6. It is, if you leave out fuel, housing, medicine, and insurance.

You know, you can get plastic dish rack for .99! Back in the 70's, you'd have to pay like 3.00 for it.

And there are more jobs than ever! Of course, they're 12-hour a week jobs with no benefits that pay, oh, $5.25.

[Selatius]

10. They've been fooling with the CPI for years to intentionally understate inflation

One reason is because Social Security payments are linked to the CPI. If you can find whatever gimmicks to keep the CPI low, you'd save money on your end, but the senior citizens would be eaten up by inflation.

There's two kinds of inflation, the one the government reports, and the one you find raping your wallet.

[Lugnut]

16. You nailed it

That fact is reflected in my SSDI payment amount increase for 2007.

[fuzzyball]

32. Many seniors are not affected by inflation such as...

Housing....most seniors do not buy homes.
College tuition...seniors not affected.
Medical insurance...Medicare is still very
reasonable at $78/month.

Above 3 items have increased at a much higher rate
than food, clothing, electronic gadgets, restaurant
prices etc, items which affect seniors most.

[MountainLaurel]

36. Yes and no

Seniors don't buy homes, but the rise in home prices has meant that many can no longer afford to pay property taxes on a fixed income.

[fuzzyball]

37. Not true in my county...there is a solid cap on real-estate tax for seniors

IT IS FROZEN FROM ANY INCREASE!! So long as the senior's income
does not exceed $35,000/year and that number gets adjusted up
every few years. On top of that, a proposition passed in Washington
State limits property increases to 1% annually.

[Greyhound]

26. Remember Kindasleazy Rice's "flexible basket" from a few years ago?

They removed the baseline, ensuring that there will never be high inflation rates to report. A nation of mathematically challenged sheep.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. "These rates that we're offering are market competitive"

Well that is the problem right there. This is a deformed disfunctional market.

"Health insurers are generally free to set prices as high as the market allows, although most states limit increases for policies covering small groups, those of two to 50 people. There are no limits for larger groups."

Pay or die. Some market.

[Hieronymus]

4. We pay many times the cost that any other country's..

citizens pay, and yet we rate #37 by the World Health Organization.
France is #1.:grr:

[file83]

24. Yet Bush announces that 'America has the best Healthcare in the World!!'

...which even if it were true, is only true if you could afford it.

Part of measuring any healthcare "system" (or any system for that matter) is to analyze the costs.

America is failing BIG TIME.

[fuzzyball]

38. If America is failing in health, then why is the life expectancy going

up relentlessly, year after year, decade after decade?

[Jackpine Radical]

7. It is the outlandish greed of the insurance companies that will

finally trigger universal single-payer coverage in America.

I see it from both the provider's perspective and the consumer's perspective. Coverage for my wife and me is now about $14,000 a year. And just yesterday at the mental health clinic where I work, we got a letter from a MAJOR insurance company trying to force us into a contract that will pay us less than half the hourly rate they had been paying for psychotherapy and related services.

[Fridays Child]

8. This has to stop.

Our insurance basically requires us to pay monthly premiums for the privilege of having claims rejected because treatments aren't covered. The most straightforward, medically necessary treatments--things that were always covered by past plans--just aren't covered, anymore. It's called "consumer driven health care" but what it really should be called is robbery.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

39. Or "a license for the ins. companies to print money"

:grr:

[Cleita]

9. We need to pass a law that enables Medicare to sell insurance

to people other than the elderly. Medicare is pretty efficiently run and with proper funding could solve this problem. I think it's time for the private insurers to get out of the business.

[Selatius]

11. Conyers and Kucinich want to introduce Medicare For All act, but it got pigeonholed.

Hopefully, Pelosi-Reid et al. are more friendly to such a proposal.

They better damn well be, if they want to keep calling themselves a political party for workers, instead of a party for the rich.

[Cleita]

12. I hope they push for this to Pelosi-Reid. n/t

[mentalsolstice]

15. I've said this for a long time!

I qualified for SSDI a couple of years ago, and thus, I'll be qualified for Medicare in January (which I'm not accepting because my spouse's family plan is cheaper). I'm now too disabled to work full-time or even part-time to make the $$$ limit. Back in the day, when I could work (I was an attorney), I refrained from going into private practice because of the cost of health insurance and my disability was a pre-existing condition. So, I had to work the hours that my employers required (long, hard, and I finally broke down, physically, I have CP). I wonder what it would've been like to start my own practice back when I could've physically done so, if I had not been so limited by lack of health care and pre-existing conditions. Perhaps I would still be practicing, at a much reduced, part-time rate...but with the peace of mind that my health care was covered. I need to add here that my spouse is much older than I am, so I couldn't rely on him working and being covered for very much longer. Plus when I made my earlier career decisions, we weren't married (one of the many reasons I very much support legal marriage for gay couples).

Eligibility for (non-retirement) Medicare is so tied up in severity of disability...you're basically required to work until you can work no more (or you die) before you can qualify, or you turn 65.

[AbbyR]

27. My husband did die

He worked for 40 years and got four months of SS and Medicare - he ended up in a wheel chair at work for a year because he could no longer walk. By the time they decided he really was disabled, he had been dead for two weeks. (That's when I got the letter.) He finally reached retirement age and spent his last four months in bed. I can't help but wonder if he would still be with me if he hadn't had to work so long.

[mentalsolstice]

28. I'm so sorry you had to experience this.

I've heard other stories of people getting approved when it is too late. What meaningless waste of life. But our "pro-life" government has done nothing...and continues to do nothing. An embryo counts for a lot more than a real person with a family, career, etc.!

[cosmicdot]

30. how about that wait period before Medicare kicks in?

what genius devised the plan so that, when someone qualifies for SSDI (disabled; has medical costs), he/she has to wait 30 months (I think it's 30) before Medicare is available?

At least, I found that a bit harsh. 30 months without health care coverage. One's on disability. Out of work. On SSDI. Where's the heath care coverage???? I suppose not 'everyone' is in that boat, but I suspect many are.

knr

[mentalsolstice]

34. No logical reason...

This system is so stupid. There are so many disabled people out there that cannot work regular employment, yet could work irregular hours if allowed their own businesses. And you've got healthy 65 year olds that could work many more years, and many are choosing to do so, and they automatically qualify for Medicare. Whereas, the disabled person, has to say I can't work (and cannot be working during the qualification process) and then once approved has to wait 24 months. I'm fortunate (I guess) that my condition, cerebral palsy, is just kind of there, I really don't depend on special treatment or meds. I can only imagine if the disability is AIDS or cancer, or numerous other conditions that require surgery or meds to survive.

In this respect, we're not much better than those countries that euthanize disabled infants...

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

13. Probably a smaller group with sick individuals that they want to eliminate altogether

"It seems very clear that the aim of such a large increase is not to get more money out of us, but to eliminate us," says Steve Rosen in Los Angeles, whose wife, Victoria, gets coverage through the program."

Of course, health insurance that costs $30k TO 40k for a family is "competitive". Yeah, right.

They "lost money" on the group during the last few years.

When we we understand that for-profit insurance companies only want to bill and charge healthy people for services they will not need? If you dare to get ill and use your insurance, they will try to find any possible way to screw your group.

It is a travesty. It is not insurance. It is a bunco scheme.

[knitter4democracy]

14. Should have known it was Cigna.

Evil bastards. They're as bad as Aetna. Many docs are dropping both of those--they squeeze the patients, and they squeeze the docs.

[KoKo]

17. We are self employed and pay $22,000 and we are in good health......

It's hard......

[progressoid]

20. It's even harder if you are self-employed and uninsured

speaking from experience

[Warren Stupidity]

21. Yeah exactly.

That huge quarterly health ins. bill, right up against the huge tax bill that gets me next to nothing other than bad wars and wrong policies...

How did this country get to be so damn stupid?

[Infinite Hope]

18. Just imagine the economic benefit of Universal Healthcare. n/t

[rman]

22. "the best possible quality for the lowest possible price"

The RW capitalist mantra.

Meaning you end up paying a fortune for shit.

[file83]

23. In some countries, you pay taxes at like 60% of your income, but you get

free healthcare, free college, etc...

But in America, if that actor was only making $50,000/year, then their healthcare ALONE would come to what, 90% of their income? Not to mention the co-pays...

That doesn't even include their TAXES!!! Shit, their healthcare costs is 3 to 4 times their income taxes!

They don't even get free college!

Time to move to Holland or Sweden yet?

[thingfisher]

29. Ain't the free enterprise system wunnerful?

Health care for profit. There is something fundamantlally wrong with that concept. For healthcare to be really effective it needs to be run like a non-profit charity.
Doctors should be paid a fair salary, but the whole bureaucratic structure of our present "healthcare system" is a nightmare. As mentioned in other posts, we get poor service at premium costs, if you can afford it.
Does the nation have a stake in assuring public health? What about the drug industry? They make their money from people getting sick not from staying well.
When every human concern is seen as nothing more than a profit motivated opportunity for profit, people are in trouble. No other nation has trvaled so far down this road as this one.

[CTLawGuy]

40. you can deduct health insurance preumiums

so probably they wouldn't pay taxes. But they'd still have no money.

[Mikey929]

33. doctor's insurance

I know an OB/Gyn who pays $180,000 a year for her malpractice insurance. Do you know how many patients she has to see per day to try to make that up? It breaks my heart to know that she is probably going to make a mistake by seeing too many patients too quickly, which would of course drive her insurance up even higher.

But of course let's not dare even talk about overhauling the current system. Let's stay the course on that too! No one wins with this winner-take-all capitalistic "free" market for health care. The government MUST guarantee everyone good health care, even if it limits the profits that these insurance companies, doctors, and drug companies can make.

[AX10]

35. What we need is healthcare reform.

Cut the balls off of the health insurance companies and implement a Universal Healthcare system.