Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Il costo della salute nel libero mercato

$44,000 a year for health insurance?
Posted 12/5/2006 9:37 PM ET
By Julie Appleby, USA TODAY
Hundreds of entertainment industry workers in California and New
Jersey who buy health insurance as a group are being hit with a rate
increase that will raise some family-plan premiums to more than
$44,000 a year.
Insurer Cigna will raise rates for members of the group, which
includes some in the Screen Actors Guild, an average of 82% in
California and 65% in New Jersey next year.
Under the new rates, the most expensive plan in California will cost a
family $3,685 a month, $44,220 a year. Less-expensive HMO plans will
cost families $24,624. In New Jersey, an HMO will cost $10,260 a year
for a single person and $30,372 for a family.
The rates illustrate the tremendous range of price increases that can
hit a business, association or individual, even when the average
national premium increase is just over 6%.
"Sadly, this happens to medium-sized businesses all the time, but they
don't make the news," says Peter Lee, head of the Pacific Business
Group on Health, a coalition of large employers.
Affected by the Cigna rate increase are about 1,100 members of 30
different guilds and associations who buy insurance through the
Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust, a Clifton Park,
N.Y.-based multiple-employer insurance broker. The trust offers the
group insurance policies to association members, a mix of small
businesses and sole proprietors.
"It seems very clear that the aim of such a large increase is not to
get more money out of us, but to eliminate us," says Steve Rosen in
Los Angeles, whose wife, Victoria, gets coverage through the program.
Cigna spokeswoman Gwyn Dilday says the insurer recently discovered it
had been charging the group incorrectly for the past 10 years. She
says the rate increase is needed because the group's costs are double
that of similar-size groups, and Cigna has lost money on it during the
past few years.
"These rates that we're offering are market competitive," Dilday says.
Health insurers are generally free to set prices as high as the market
allows, although most states limit increases for policies covering
small groups, those of two to 50 people. There are no limits for
larger groups.
"This shows there are inadequate mechanisms in place around the
country to review rate increases and protect the public from extreme
rate increases," says Drew Altman, head of the Kaiser Family
Foundation, a non-partisan research group. The average cost nationally
for a family plan offered by employers was $11,480 this year, the
foundation says.
State regulators concluded that the trust members do not qualify under
the state's small-group rules, says Denise Schmidt, spokeswoman for
the California Department of Managed Health Care. Nor does the
increase appear aimed solely at causing members to terminate their
policies, she says.
"In looking at those rates, they don't appear to be outside the norm,
given the average age of the group, the (generous) benefit structure
and the group's claims history," Schmidt says.
David Rubin, who along with his wife, Alice, oversees the trust, says
many members won't be able to afford the policies. "We are getting
people who are dropping out, and we're getting people who are telling
me they wish they could drop out but know they cannot get (other)
insurance," Rubin says.
Siri Feeney, a children's textbook artist in Ventura, Calif., says her
$425-a-month rate is set to nearly double: "This is really hard for
me. Some years, I only make that much a month."

 By Julie Appleby, USA TODAY
La California ha talmente tante leggi che influiscono sulla sanità che
parlare di libero mercato è ridicolo.
Mirco
-- 
I governi non risolvono i problemi; danno loro dei sussidi. -Ronald Reagan
Extropolitica
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