Trying To Make Sense of Insurance Premiums

8 November, 2013. 369 words.

Normally if I see an article titled “Obamacare destroying lives, killing business,” I skip it, because it’s obviously going to be partisan rhetoric, especially coming from RedState, a political blog which thrives on such. But for some reason I went through with reading this article, because I saw that it was a (supposedly) real-life example of someone who is being forced to buy a more expensive plan with less benefits under Obamacare.

Blue Cross Blue Shield told this guy his monthly payment is going to rise from $735 to $1115, with a much larger deductible, and less coverage. He is a self-employed real estate agent, which confirms my theory that it’s only the self-insured who are getting shafted under Obamacare.

What’s missing from RedState’s article is: If this guy’s so healthy, why did his insurance cost $735 a month to start with? Again I must remind the reader that I know nothing about healthcare insurance, but that sounds like a lot to me for a whole family of healthy people. Could that number include his business insurance? Or is he living in the middle of Manhattan where everything is five times more expensive just by default? There’s really not enough information in his testimonial to get a complete picture of what’s happening with him. (Which, I’m sure, is intentional. RedState only wants us to see those numbers and think, OMG Obamacare bad!)

Assuming those numbers are real, I can’t help but wonder why Blue Cross Blue Shield needs to raise their rates. They obviously have a business reason, and I doubt they could get away with something as simple as an opportunistic gouging. Do they have more costs to cover under Obamacare? I could see that, but it makes no sense that they would have that much to pay in taxes. Is it a preemptive strike because they predict more costs? Are they expecting a certain number of people will leave, so they’ll need to make it up by raising the rates on the remaining people? I know how much insurance people love to work with statistics and predictions. I just don’t get it. This is why I hate talking about healthcare and insurance, because it makes no sense.

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