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California’s Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said yesterday that his department has found the latest rate increase by Anthem Blue Cross Life and Health Insurance Company are excessive and unreasonable.
His remarks followed Anthem’s announcement that it is increasing rates on its small group health insurance policyholders, while posting a return on equity of 25.2% as noted in the company’s 2012 financial statements. For some Anthem small business customers, this translates to a 12-month increase of 22.9%.
Jones said the average 12-month increase for the policyholders impacted by this rate filing is 10.5%. Anthem’s April 1 small group rate increases ultimately impact more than a quarter of a million healthcare consumers.
“Tough economic times in California have been particularly challenging for small businesses,” Jones said. “These ongoing and excessive rate increases are simply unsustainable, as many small businesses struggle simply to survive.”
“Anthem Blue Cross is imposing yet another unreasonable and excessive rate increase on small employers when the company is posting a 2012 profit-as measured by return on equity-of more than 25%,” he added.
The state’s Insurance Department actuaries reviewed Anthem’s rate filing and found a number of unreasonable components, including overestimated future claims and utilization, excessive return on equity and charging policyholders in 2013 for healthcare reform fees and taxes that are not even being collected by the federal government until 2014, Jones said. In fact, the federal government has yet to even determine the amount of some of those fees and taxes.
The April 1 rate increase will impact approximately 45,000 healthcare consumers within 7,000 small business employer groups whose policies are up for renewal between now and June. It will also be imposed on the rest of the small business policyholders as their polices renew throughout the rest of the year, ultimately impacting as many as a quarter of a million healthcare consumers, Jones said.
This is the second time this year Anthem has imposed a rate increase on its small business customers despite Jones’ determination that the rate increase is unreasonable. Still, neither California law nor the Affordable Care Act prohibits health insurers from imposing rate increases. State law does, however, prevent excessive rate increases for other lines of insurance, such as auto, homeowners and medical malpractice insurance.
Jones has asked Anthem to reduce the average rate increase by 2.5% for small businesses, which is an average reduction of 7.3% from the filed rates.
If Anthem had agreed to lower the rates, policyholders would have saved $57 million over the rates that Anthem is now imposing, Jones said.
One of the many problems with Obamacare – not only does it add costs to insurance, but forces us to buy a policy from one of these many crooks.
My rates just went up 19% for the next year, and last year they went up 13% from the previous year. And this is for a very minimal catastrophic coverage plan with a super high annual deductible. So a combined 32% increase in 2 years.
This is an even faster rate of increase than before Obamacare. Of course, we were lied to by politicians who said that premiums would get smaller. I knew we were being lied to, because you can’t cover 30,000,000 more people at less expense or even at the same expense.
A lot of people only listened long enough to hear things such as “free health care” and “providing health care to 30,000,000 people who don’t have health care” and “it’s going to cost less.” The average citizen is not very analytical regarding what politicians say. Most voters hear a few buzz words, and then they believe things even though they sound “too good to be true” without thinking further.
Obamacare does not bend the health care expense curve downward. It bends it upward, as real life is showing us now.
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HOORAY!
He’s just now finding out they’re excessive. Where’s he been?
Maybe if we didn’t have to pay $12 for a 10 cent syringe or $10 for an Advil tablet when in the hospital, that would help. Its just bilk everyone we can in the process so we can additionally pay for the complete healthcare of the illegal aliens that walk in to the emergency room for routine care. Then we also need to make sure the insurance companies have plenty of nice buildings to work in and their execs can make their yacht payments.
scumbags
You better get use to it.
Bend over, folks. Queen Pelosi said “you need to pass it to find out what’s in it”, referring to Obamacare. Well, they passed it, and now you are beginning to find out what’s in it. Much higher premiums and more taxes, and more taxes, and more taxes. Oh, and as many as 60% of doctors over 50 are indicating they will retire early rather than deal with disfunction, gougings, and unethical practices (yes, there are death panels – not so good for granny). So, you are also going to be waiting a long time to see a doctor. And, its a whole lot less likely you well be able to see your own doctor (Yes, Obama lied about that TOO). People actually thought all those uninsured were going to magically get insurance at no cost? Bend over, folks.
In cost, quality, hospital safety, service, innovation, cancer screening, MEDICARE Stars measures, etc…. Look it up. Blue Cross is killing off its own business and just trying to wring as much out of their few remaining customers as possible.
As a business owner I have seen firsthand health care premiums rising 15% to +20% every year for a few years now. I have chosen to go with larger and larger deductibles each year to stem the cost. These rate increases have come from all providers, not just Anthem Blue Cross, and they’ve been increasing before Obama took office. If the insurance companies would design better health care plans we could have a win-win.