Crush Liberalism

Another ObamaCare consequence: Some insurance companies no longer writing policies to cover kids

Yet another instance in a growing line of examples where Pelosi’s “We have to pass it to see what’s in it” warning was warranted.  Details:

Some major health insurance companies will no longer issue certain types of policies for children, an unintended consequence of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law, state officials said Friday.

Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said several big insurers in his state will stop issuing new policies that cover children individually. Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland said a couple of local insurers in her state are doing likewise.

In Florida, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Aetna, and Golden Rule — a subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare — notified the insurance commissioner that they will stop issuing individual policies for children, said Jack McDermott, a spokesman for McCarty.
…
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida issues about 9,000 to 10,000 new policies a year that only cover children. Vice president Randy Kammer said the company’s experts calculated that guaranteeing coverage for children could raise premiums for other individual policy holders by as much as 20 percent.

“We believe that the majority of people who would buy this policy were going to use it immediately, probably for high cost claims,” said Kammer. “Guaranteed issue means you could technically buy it on the way to the hospital.”

Kammer said the company did not make the decision lightly. “We were looking at all our other individual policy holders who pay a lot for coverage, and we didn’t think it was fair to given them that kind of an increase to benefit a small population that receives a greater advantage than they do,” she said.

Turns out that when you make businesses incur signifantly higher costs, businesses always look for ways to avoid getting socked with said skyrocketing costs.  Huh.  Go figure.  Who knew, right?

Exit question: Why do Democrats hate children?

July 26, 2010 - Posted by crushliberalism | big government, economic ignorance, health care, Pelosi, socialism