The long-awaited proposed HHS regulations for dealing with "unreasonable rate increases" were released Dec. 21, and health insurers will soon face greater scrutiny than they have ever faced before. Starting July 1, any planned rate hike of 10% or more in the individual or small-group market must undergo extensive review......insurers would have to publicly disclose not only the increases and the rationale for them, but lots of other information, including the salaries of their executives...
...HHS would have subjective criteria it could use to determine that a state’s review processes are not effective, and that means HHS would take over the review itself. In addition, states (and perhaps HHS) could bar carriers deemed to be unreasonably raising premiums from participating in the new insurance exchanges...
...Overall, HHS’s new filing requirements are so extensive for planned hikes of 10% or more, and the potential for adverse publicity is so enormous, that some insurers may choose to back off even from hikes that are needed and warranted...
Not only will the Department of Health and Human Services hold the power of life and death over you -- the individual -- but it will also determine which private insurance companies live and die.
The Department of HHS has the power to reward and punish; to enrich its political allies and bankrupt its enemies; to deny health care services or permit them; to play God.
And that is why Democrats jammed through a monstrous bill that purports to be "health care reform". No one read the bill. No one knows exactly what it will do. But they knew enough, namely that it will grant unlimited, God-like power to a select few political hacks.
Like Venezuela. Or the old Soviet Union. That's the 'change' the drones voted for in 2008.
You are 100% right. But you are leaving out that the INTENT, among many other bad ones of Obamacare, which is to destroy all private insurance and bring us the wonderful waiting lists of England and fully give us the so-called "public option".
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, England is coming out with guidelines to change the National Health Service, because...well gosh...it ISN"T WORKING, and Britain is going broke on it. I have no idea if the new rules will really give any freedom back to anyone, and will stop literally killing others as it has done, but at least there is recognition that it doesn't work. And in Canada, at least some provinces, I believe, have okayed private clinics and physicians, because, guess what, the full-Leftist monty of socialized health care DOESN"T WORK. It's great if you are healthy. but if you are sick, eat the ibuprofen and wait months for the MRI and your diagnosis, and then wait some more for your surgery.
This is the end-game for Obamacare, to make sure there is a complete and total lack of anything other than govt. run healthcare. With bureaucrats having 100% the power of life and death over you.
Sure, the insurance companies have a lot of sway now, and I am happy to argue that we should have REAL COMPETITION and more of a real free-market in medical care, which would drive down prices and give us more freedom of choice. Hackneyed arguments against it won't work. Forget Repub vs. Dem, too, I want cheaper care and more freedom. It can be had, and Obamacare is the exact opposite of that. So start over, because the bill cannot be fixed. It is NOT WORKABLE. The totalitarianism of it is under display with the harridan Sibelius's pronouncements.
It shouldn't surprise me, but it does. This is absolutely, 100% fascism.
ReplyDeleteWhy can't they pass a law that allows poor people to buy steak and lobster in restaurants for the price of a Big Mac?
ReplyDeleteDon't these people see the social injustice of different prices?
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UNBELIEVABLE.
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