Now You Can Keep Your Plan?
Mike Walker, Col. USMC (retired)
All,
Setting responsible insurance rates is not like flicking a switch.
HHS sent out the guidelines that killed millions of insurance policies months ago and IN THEORY the insurance companies were to wait until the exchanges were up so the shafted millions would then enter the great and wonderful world of Obama Care (and just wait until the employer mandates kick in next year!).
That clever BELTWAY THEORY did not go so well, but going back is not going to be simple.
Had there been NO OBAMA CARE then the insurance companies would have been crunching numbers since the spring to get the new rates so they could have given them to their customers in October-November-December during the open enrollment period.
AYE, THERE’S THE RUB.
The insurance companies did NOT spend money or time calculating rates for policies that were DEAD. They applied their resources to calculating rates on OBAMA CARE plans people COULD ACTUALLY BUY.
If the President now declares “ALL STOP” and “GO BACK” to your old plan, there is a problem:
NO ONE HAS CALCULATED THE 2014 RATES for plans that are now to be brought back from the dead.
And getting those numbers will not happen quickly, certainly not by 31 December.
So the people who had their plans cancelled will be screwed again, the insurance companies are screwed because WASHINGTON has miraculously ordered the dead to walk amongst us again and we will all go through another period of pain and confusion.
And do the dead plans become dead plans again next year on 1 January 2015?
What a stupid mess!
Thank you once again, BIG GOVERNMENT!
Mike
