Coburn has proclaimed private insurance will cease to be

[Townsend]

dammit Tom, knock it off...

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=262&articleid=20101012_262_0_hrimgs995333

Coburn: Private health insurance may end soon

Private health insurance in the U.S. will be dead in three years, U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn said Tuesday.

"There will be no insurance industry left in three years," Coburn told the Republican Women's Club of Tulsa County.

"That is by design. You're going to make insurance unaffordable for everyone -- which is what they want. Because if there's no private insurance left, what's left? Government-centered, government-run, single-payer health care."

Coburn apparently based his prediction on reported hikes in private insurance premiums, increases he attributed to the new law.

Some insurers say they have raised premiums because of new mandates, including requirements they cover pre-existing conditions and allow parents to keep children on their policies up to age 26.

Senate Democrats last month accused the insurers of profiteering and demanded they justify the increases.

Coburn, facing re-election on Nov. 2, said it will be "the beginning of the end of America" if the reform bill's so-called individual mandate is not revoked or thrown out by the courts.

"This will be a major step in the elimination of the freedom of the American people," Coburn said.

[nathanm]

That's funny. The law essentially gives them a cost-plus premium structure. Yet somehow we're driving them out of business? Maybe he should talk to AEP and see what they think about having a reasonably healthy profit margin written into law.

Sometimes I'm glad to have Coburn. I may vehemently disagree with him on nearly every issue, but he doesn't often act like an utter moron like our other Senator. This claim of his is just plain stupid.

Moreover, what are our other options aside from banning pre-existing condition exclusions? Well, we could have another round of nationalizing the risk and privatizing the profit and take people with expensive conditions into a government health program he would no doubt oppose. The only other option I see is to continue to let people become debt slaves due to health problems. You'd think that, as a doctor, he would be opposed to the latter.

[Conan71]

He's right about one thing: premiums are necessarily going up. Whether demand will wither as people decide to pay their penaly and opt out remains to be seen. I'm not quite certain why the Feds didn't simply create it's own high risk pool for those insurers deem undesireable (ie pre-existing conditions) sort of like our state run high risk pool.

[nathanm]

He's right about one thing: premiums are necessarily going up. Whether demand will wither as people decide to pay their penaly and opt out remains to be seen. I'm not quite certain why the Feds didn't simply create it's own high risk pool for those insurers deem undesireable (ie pre-existing conditions) sort of like our state run high risk pool.

Premiums definitely will rise before the individual mandate kicks in, since insurers are being required to take on higher-risk individuals in essentially the same sized risk pool. After that, they should fall as the risk is spread over a larger pool. What I don't know is whether the most recent round of increases is due to actual cost increases or if it's just more profit-taking prior to the loss ratio regulation kicking in.

Government run high risk pools are nothing more than a blatant giveaway to the health insurance companies. It's socializing the risk and privatizing the profit, just like we did with the banks. IMO, it should either be all private (with regulation) or all public, as far as the payer side goes.