Assuming that WellPoint is not the dumbest corporate entity on the planet, the new political flap over its proposed premium rate increase of 39% in the individual market presents a good example of the absurdity of the Administrations’ proposed health care reform. Despite the rhetoric, which is to be expected from politicians, the fact is that nothing in the proposed legislation will lower health care costs especially the ones affected by this increase.
In fact, the Congressional Budget Office projects that individual premiums will be higher ten years from now than if there were no reform. Changing the underwriting rules, mandating higher benefits, eliminating caps on expenses, shifting cost from Medicare all combine to add costs to private sector coverage. Since there is no true reform in the health care system as was the original stated goal people still need to ask, “Exactly where in these thousands of pages of legislation can I find the secret to controlling health care costs?”
Of course, WellPoint provided an easy target and one wonders why now it would not try to mitigate this increase even knowing it was only a short-term solution, but hey, I gave up the corporate world a month ago. From the news reports, it appears that the individual market was losing money while other business made money. Somebody should tell the public that the individual market rates could be lower if all other policyholders wanted to subsidize that higher risk group, or WellPoint might have held rates lower only to have an even higher increase in the future.
On the other hand, I suppose we could follow the progressive solution and expect WellPoint to eliminate all its profit to subsidize rate increases, I guess that would work for a few years, hey if underfunding your promises and obligations works for Medicare, why not try it for all health care?
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