The September mandates will reduce the medical insurance alternatives available for children. Across the United States, many private health insurance companies appear to have decided not to insure those under 19 who purchase standalone policies after September 22nd. Not all companies have announced their decision on this issue, but many that have are choosing eliminate these types of policies.
The September mandates will reduce the medical insurance alternatives available for children. Across the United States,
many private health insurance companies appear to have decided not to insure those under 19 who purchase standalone policies after September 22nd. Not all companies have announced their decision on this issue, but many that have are choosing eliminate these types of policies.
Children 18 and under who apply for insurance with at least one parent will not be affected. kids who are covered by standalone policies that were effective prior to the mandate will be allowed to keep their existing coverage.
Who is the bad guy here? We can fault the insurance companies. However, mandating that an insurance company to insure unhealthy people is like asking lending institutions to underwrite loans for people who have unstable incomes. Congress could more at fault than the insurance companies.
Health care insurance companies do make tons of money but their margins are not very fat. They don't make a lot of money on per policy. Adding just a few additional significantly unprofitable people can make them lose money or make their prices unaffordable.
A simplistic example might involve an insurance carrier that insures a hundred people against major health problems only. Each person pays one thousand and twenty dollars a year. One of the insured people has a myocardial infarction every year. It costs the carrier $100,000. The carrier pays the health care expenses and keeps $2,000 as a profit.
After a new law goes into effect, they are mandated to provide coverage for five unhealthy people. Every year one of these five new people has a cardiac arrest that costs an additional $100,000. This means that the insurance company doubled its expenses, but not its income.
If the insurance company responded by raising the premiums of the policies, their policyholders might respond also. Some might terminate their policies. Chances are the healthier people would be much more likely to decide to take a chance. It is a sure thing that their premiums would have to go up again and again as the percentage of unhealthy or unprofitable policyholders keeps growing.
When an insurance company is mandated to take on people without regard to their health history, they run the risk of closing their doors. This could sound ludicrous to you, but big companies go out of business from time to time.
Perhaps if the United States auto manufacturers had been more fiscally responsible, they wouldn't have needed us to bail them out. Perhaps lending institutions should have been more prudent a few years ago and not underwritten so many soon-to-be bad loans.
A law of congress cannot change the laws of the marketplace. If an insurance company takes on unprofitable business it will have to raise its rates. If they are forced to raise their rates more than their competitors, they will wind up with fewer customers.
Congress wrote a law that was supposed to provide universal medical coverage to youth. This law has had not given us what they intended. Fewer alternatives for health coverage are now available for youth.
This has to make the voting public wonder if the other, soon to be enacted health care reform mandates are going to work. Our politicians spent a lot of time demonizing the insurance carriers. They are no more or less evil than corporations in any type of business. They spent a lot of time telling us how much money they make overall. The real issue is what they make per insured person.
We've gotten compelling rhetoric and at least one stupid mandate. Let's hope that this was the only one screw up. Say a prayer.
