The New Health Dialogue

Guess what's going up again? And not just for Anthem customers in California.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released a new report, aptly called, Insurance Companies Prosper, Families Suffer: Our Broken Health Insurance System. (You can watch the press conference video, here). The report describes health insurance premium spikes in states across the country, specifically Michigan, Connecticut, Main, Oregon and Rhode Island.

The report was released shortly after Anthem Blue Cross of California, an insurance company owned by the for-profit company WellPoint, Inc., stated its individual market premiums would increase by 39 percent over the next few months despite WellPoint’s $2.7 billion profit in the last quarter. (After bad press and government inquiries, the scheduled increase was postoned until May 1, 2010.)

"Over the last year, America's largest insurance companies have requested premium increases of 56 percent in Michigan, 24 percent in Connecticut, 23 percent in Maine, 20 percent in Oregon, and 16 percent in Rhode Island, to name just a few states," said Sebelius. "Premium increases have left thousands of families that are already struggling during the economic downturn with an unpleasant choice between fewer benefits, higher premiums, or having no insurance at all. Hard-working families deserve better.”

 So what can be done to prevent such premium hikes? The report states that health reform will:

• Place additional oversight on health insurance companies to ensure that people get value for the premiums they pay. Insurance companies will have to report how they spend the premium dollars that they collect from their customers.
   
• End arbitrary limits placed on coverage by insurance companies.
   
• End insurance company discrimination so that insurers can't refuse to cover people who have been sick.
   
• Create competition among insurers with a health insurance exchange.
   
• The health insurance exchange will bring families and plans together into one organized marketplace so families can compare prices and health plans in order to decide which quality, affordable option is right for them.
   
• Health insurance reform will guarantee every American a choice of health coverage, even if someone loses a job, switches jobs, moves, or gets sick.
   
• Ensure value in our health care system by rewarding high quality, efficient and coordinated care.
   
• Lower premiums. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that reform will streamline administrative costs of insurance companies and bring more people into the insurance market, lowering premiums of a comparable plan in the individual market by 14 to 20 percent.

"Premium hikes in California and across the country are a wakeup call," added Sebelius. "It's time for Congress to pass reform and hand control over health care decisions back to American families and their doctors."