Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Obamacare Bites

I have been trying to deal with the constraints of Obamacrap but this is too much. For all the talk about keeping your plan, giving everyone lower health insurance premiums and saving the world from capitalism, this thing with children's health insurance really bites.

Hardly a week goes by when I don't get a call from someone wanting to buy health insurance on their child. The only thing I can offer is either a short term medical through one of two carriers or a basic health insurance plan.

Real major medical on a child only is extinct.

Obamacrap started the ball rolling and HHS put the finishing touches by telling carriers they could not decline children or place an exclusionary rider on a medical condition.

The carriers responded by pulling all "child only" rates and plans and only offering to cover children when applying as a dependent of a healthy adult.

Riders are not a problem for a lot of conditions and can actually make coverage LESS expensive and MORE widely available vs. rate up for the condition.

I have a long time client with family coverage that has been with the same carrier for 5 years. They finally got tired of the rate increases and wanted to look at options.

I found a comparable plan with Humana that would save them almost $200/month so we applied.

One of their children was recently diagnosed with ADD/ADHD but is not yet on any medication. When med's are introduced they can easily run $150/month or more.

Even though she is not on med's now, that could change so the carrier rates for the potential.

That resulted in a $90 increase in the premium. Still a savings vs. the renewal, but Obamacrap rules made their coverage MORE expensive, not less.

They would have been happy with the rider and would rather not pay an extra $1000 per year to comply with Obamacrap rules.

So what happened to the promise of lower premiums for everyone?

Smaller cars, bigger health insurance premiums, Poppa Washington.
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