Comments on: Dems tout health insurance premium rebates

By: Ralph Hoffmann

Ralph Hoffmann — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 04:11:50 +0000

Many insurance companies have high profits because their stock isn’t publicly traded.

By: John W

John W — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 22:08:48 +0000

To be fair, this is not all smoke and mirrors. What they are talking about is premiums paid by people who have to buy insurance on their own in the dysfunctional individual insurance market, rather than getting it through an employer plan. “Obamacare” is 90% about reforming that segment of the health insurance industry, not overhauling the entire health care system. People who have always had access to employer-sponsored health insurance often don’t realize what people in the individual market are up against — no tax preference, higher premiums, pre-existing conditions, arbitrarily denied claims etc. In contrast to insurance obtained through employers, where 85% or more of each premium dollar typically goes to pay for health care, 70% or less of premiums in the less regulated individual market have gone to paying for health care.

By: Elwood

Elwood — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 06:52:28 +0000

All this dimmiecrat wonderfulness will be paid for by our grandchildren in higher taxes.

There is no free lunch.

By: Common Tater

Common Tater — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 06:33:57 +0000

Do you really expect any thinking person to trust Miller or Stark on ANY issue?

By: John W

John W — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:39:40 +0000

Okay. Make that two tenths of one percent.

By: John W

John W — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:38:27 +0000

Right. $4.9 billion is a tenth of one percent of what we spend on health care. Dems, Repubs and the general public never seem to get it that our problem is runaway medical costs. We can dink around with the middleman we call insurance all we want, but it makes no difference if the underlying health care costs that drive insurance rates keep growing at two or three times as much as the economy as a whole. Nobody — private sector, public sector or individuals — will be able to afford good health care.

By: Steve Bloom

Steve Bloom — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 02:48:15 +0000

This doesn’t seem like big bucks on a per-person basis. It seems to me that the extent to which the law holds down future rates is far more important. Does (will) it?

By: RR, Uninvited Columnist

RR, Uninvited Columnist — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 01:10:06 +0000

What Messrs Stark and Miller don’t explain is how Uncle Sam will administer the industry administrators.