Quote:
Originally Posted by BBQMan
...The average earnings increase was 15% if you do not include the losses at Health Net. Including them would reduce this number to closer to 12%. This is quite healthy but not in the 39% to 48% reported in the media.
You can expect to continue to pay more for health care. Obamacare mandated some procedures not normally previously covered and eliminated insurance company’s right to exclude previously existing conditions from coverage. Treatment for PEC’s normally had an exclusion period before coverage would kick in. These may be good ideas, but they cost money. As additional phases of Obamacare come into effect, they will continue to drive up health costs. Insurance premiums and deductibles will, of necessity, rise with the increases in cost. There is no ‘free lunch’. You can expect to continue to pay more for health care. Obamacare mandated some procedures not normally previously covered and eliminated insurance company’s right to exclude previously existing conditions from coverage. Treatment for PEC’s normally had an exclusion period before coverage would kick in. These may be good ideas, but they cost money. As additional phases of Obamacare come into effect, they will continue to drive up health costs. Insurance premiums and deductibles will, of necessity, rise with the increases in cost. There is no ‘free lunch’.
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Excellent response. I will admit that maybe I should have done more research on earnings. The statistics I stated I heard today in an interview with a market strategist on Bloomberg Radio. I recall listening to the numbers for each of five companies and the low was +39% with a high of +48%. Now it makes me wonder what time periods he was talking about. It might have been year over year.
You're also right about new coverage inclusions in ObamaCare. What seems to be missing is very much that will actually begin to control or cut the costs of healthcare. Many of those inclusions were "lobbied out" of the bill that was finally passed.
What's going to happen, of course, is that instead of Congress designing a bill that would actually work to begin to reduce healthcare costs there will be a fiscal train wreck that will result in cost cutting to all government spending more akin to cutting and slashing with a battle axe rather than an intelligent assessment of priorities. But then, maybe an intelligent approach is and always has been beyond the ability of this Congress or any other Congress to accomplish.