Health Premiums Begin

 to Soar

August 28, 2010,  Patriot 10

Blue Cross/Blue Shield is putting millions of Americans on notice. Your insurance premiums are going up effective immediately. Blue Cross/Blue Shield blames an “overall rise in health care costs” and says it has no choice but to pass the costs on to the consumer.

Recently Fox News posed this question. Are the companies raising rates to build reserves or are they raising rates in advance of rising costs they are anticipating by Obamacare, or are they raising rates because of an actual rise in the delivery of actual medical costs?  They cannot get a straight answer.

Fox News did find another example of how Obamacare has influenced the behavior of health care providers. The new federal law mandates that no more that 20 percent of every premium dollar be attributable to administrative costs. Therefore many companies who currently run 26 percent of administrative costs for every dollar have now “reclassified” many administrative services as “medical” so they do not lose income and can avoid reducing overhead.

Obamacare does not even take effect until 2014. You can be sure there will be more to come on this subject.