Comments on: Just Say No? (or, Isn’t It Ironic)

By: Health Care Tips » Blog Archive » New Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Feature Highlights Recent Blog Entries

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:26:52 +0000

[...] Rosman from Health Care for All’s A Healthy Blog responds to issues raised in a letter from Massachusetts business and insurer trade groups. The [...]

By: Arabesque

Arabesque — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:05:37 +0000

You state:
“Reserves in excess of 60 days total $756 million (source). We don’t see why taking this slight amount would necessarily lead to immediate higher premiums. Insurers could absorb this, and get by with smaller reserves or cut other expenses. Given the huge growth in private insurance as a result of health reform, we think the modest assessment on the beneficiaries of that growth is fair.”

One of the many problems with this argument is that since there are more people enrolled in insurance plans, there needs to be more reserves rather than less. It does not make sense to cut ~5% of reserves at a time when there has been “huge growth” in the number of people covered.

By: Brian Eno

Brian Eno — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:13:19 +0000

I guess the problem with one group’s voice speaking for many businesses is that they end up speaking for both the socially responsible employers and the one’s that try to act as the “payer of last resort.” Hopefully, responsible business people will come forth to speak out against subsidizing the firms that get around providing health benefits and moan about having to pay even the pitiful “Fair” Share Assessment (Free Rider Assessment is more accurate).

Let’s be honest, what hurts bottom lines of many companies or the other employers that pad their profits by offering such low quality or highly priced insurance products that employees seek coverage from their spouse’s employer.

Until the employer community comes forth to demand higher employer taxes to help fund a single-payer system they need to either offer their employees insurance products which are affordable and high quality, or buck-up and send in the $295/year.

While I’m at it… The response of the insurers that they can’t dip into the huge financial reserves because of the threat of pandemic flu or a terrorist attack as well as the hospital association tying its support to the need to defeat mandatory nurse staffing ratios is just pathetic.