OK i health insurance though regency insurance. is they have asked the state for a fee raise of 15%. last week it was announces that they have a 1 billion dollars reserve. looks like greed to me.

They need the rate increase so they don't have to deny so many claims next year. Health insurance as an industry is an oxymoron.

They bumped ours 22% in one year after BOcare passed. Some B.S. about need to covered new costs and this/that. What will happen when BOcare is struck down in the coming days......will it drop back down? Somehow I doubt it.

Insurance is a racket and B.S. Reminds me of gasoline. Once it is up it will never drop again. That becomes the new baseline. I laughed last night when my wife told me that gas had dropped to $3.50 at arco in bremerton. She said "Wow". I thought about three years ago when it first hit three dollars and a turd fell in my pants. Now we would love $3 a gallon. What a bunch of F-ing sheep we all are.

You might want to look at what was happening to healthcare rates before BOcare passed and then decide if that is the reason. It really started going up when the Toyota Prius's started coming out so I blame that?

I can give you a track of our personal costs. It went

3%
5%
5%
7%
22%
12%

That 22% was year after BOcare. I never said it was because of the bill. More like the insurance comp hedging against future costs and gouging us a bit. 12% the next year as well which jumped our costs 34% in two years. Tough when you pay 12 peoples full insurance costs with them having 0% out of pocket on premiums. Out of control and the bill did nothing to help that. It was not a cost cutting bill as advertised but a coverage bill. Now the public option would have helped but not what they did......not at all.

I completely agree. Without the public option in the bill, the bill became a shell of itself. People are very scared though.

It's a tangled mess. More tentacles than an octopus.

cost of education for the doctors
cost of R & D for pharmaceuticals
cost of products in the pharmaceuticals
cost of brick & mortar
cost of laboratory & testing equipment
cost of... it goes on

and then...
here comes the trial lawyers... sharks
every i & t have got to be dotted and crossed... or
causing & costing too many tests and procedures being performed
all of this only to cover one's butt and avoid staggering judgments or settlements

all of this calculates into and drives up the costs of insurance
what is the answer
you tell me

I don't think it is the physicians and dentists who are send the rates up. Insurance cut payments to my dentist; but he is still expected by them to provide the same service. For less.

My physician is seeing more patients in order to not lose income as the payments get cut.

Just for grins, look at the insurance statement and see the difference between what is charged and what gets paid. I know that the Medicare payments to physicians here in WA aren't high enough. Try finding a doc who will take you as a new medicare patient.

Um... you forgot a big one (intentionally?).

PROFITS

"In the first three quarters of 2011, the five largest publicly traded insurers reported their best three-quarter performance of the past decade, Bloomberg found. The companies' average operating margin widened to 8.65 percent in 2011, compared with 6.9 percent in the 18 months before the law was passed, surpassing Wall Street analysts’ expectations.

Profit margins for 2011 widened despite new and potentially costly requirements for private insurers under health care reform, such as making insurers accept children with preexisting conditions. Since the law was passed, coverage has remained stable, cost growth hasn't substantially accelerated, and profits show no signs of declining, Bloomberg found."

Really Hank?

I was merely making the point that in all the "costs" that we pay for in health care, it is absurd to not mention profits if you want to make a list that long.

Back to your "argument"..

"Small Business"?

And you want to equate a Playstation or Cell Phone to health care?

You're smarter than that...










right?

Obama met insurers behind close doors for a sweetheart deal for them to quit fighting "obamacare". then you have a provision that effectively eliminates the young from the insurance pool because you need the young vote to get re-elected and you have a total mess.

you all are missing my point. they have one billon in the bank and want more

Hank, once again, you fail to step up to the plate when getting into a serious conversation.

You equate Rvrfshr with the world's largest health care companies and retreat to a nah-nah-nah type of overly simplistic argument. It is for these types of reasons that you often get clowned around here and get such little respect. It is very possible to have a different opinion that someone else and actually make sound arguments but you seem to forget the second part on a regular basis.

Like a few other people on this board, you look to "get the goats" of us "libtards", somehow mistaking it for an a sign that you've "won an argument". Congrats?

I thought he was a socialist intent on bringing down the private sector? Now I hear it is the opposite? Confusing.

Also, which provision are you referring to regarding eliminating the young from the insurance pool?

People can read all of what I wrote and all of what you wrote and decide. I think you've reinforced my point.

Good luck in, AK. Rob should be able to get you into some fish.

If you have insurance, be thankful.

I am trying to get mine back in place through COBRA. What a clusterfuck.

As it looks now, I am uninsured. As a result I am "Temporarily Inactive" on the transplant list. I know I am close, as I was called the day I went into the hospital in early February and couldn't accept/was ineligible due to infection.

King County works through something called FBMC. They suck.

The olds are cute.

Hank has limited on trouser trout several times.

Does anyone know how this nargin is calculated. If they are making 8.5% on their money, is this based on saying they make 8.5% on each dollar that goes through the door, after all expenses, reserves, capital payments, research, pension plans, ...?

When I had insurance, I was paying close to $2000 a month, plus a $20 co-pay. The way I read the fine print on the paperwork, the maximum payout was $1,000,000 in benefits. I had this insurance for about 10 years before I cancelled it. If I had continued the insurance for the life of my work period, I easily could have paid close to the maximum payout in straight payments, not including interest. Worse, I cancelled for a period and thought about coming back. They informed me verbally that my wife would not qualify as she had not had a specific surgery to correct an issue she has. The funny thing is, they also kept refusing to do the same surgery as they stated it wasn't necessary. Unfortunately, this was also the only insurance plan available to me.