Health Insurance Benefits Kick In

Well we have hit one of the milestones along the affordable health care highway. Effective September 23rd there are a few new benefits that kick in

• Life time maximums no longer exist
• children can now stay on their parents policies until age 26
• Annual limits no longer exist
• 100% of preventive care costs will be paid for in-network claims

As you might expect each of these will come with a cost and that cost will soon become apparent once the insurance companies begin raising their rates in the next few months.

Of all of these benefits the only one I think deserves to be mandated is number four. Preventive care can go a long way to lowering the long term costs of health care. If we catch the problem before it becomes a problem then we can avoid the catastrophic event. What a great innovation in thinking!! So I am all for number four

As far as numbers 1, 2 & 3 why didn't we make them OPTIONS!!!! Options that those who want them can PAY for them instead of everyone having to pay for them across the board.

I have never had a client ask me why the Lifetime benefits were so low.

I have had very few ask me why their annual maximums were so low.

I have had a few ask why they could not keep their children who are still in school on their policies, but most of the insurance companies had already put this into effect without the help of the Federal Government.

The sad reality is now due to large government intervention we will have some changes that were probably not even necessary. They were certainly not necessary as MANDATED benefits, and they will come with cost increases that will never be rolled back even if the Heath Care Reform package is repealed in the next Congress.

When we ever learn to really tell Washington to stay out of our pockets!!

Health Insurance Reform - The Final Lap

Well we finally made it. After a full year of promises from one side of the aisle that the country would have health insurance reform we are down to the last few days before the vote is taken. We are down to the FINAL LAP!!

Let's talk about what we will have once the FINAL LAP is completed. We may have a health insurance reform program that will cost US (as in the United States) or US (as in you and me) over a TRILLION dollars in new debt. This is debt that those of us over 50 can probably live with because we will probably not be around long enough to see the devastating effect it will have on our children and our children's children.

We will definitely have hundreds, who knows maybe thousands of pork barrel programs buried in the health insurance reform program that have absolutely nothing to do with reform, but in fact are the results of Washington D.C. "horse trading" for votes. I am not even sure that any of these programs are included in the debt number that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) came up with for the program. I tend to doubt it since these little ditties fall outside the purview of the CBO audit.

Oh and by the way if the bill does pass on the FINAL LAP all of you folks who are in desperate need of health insurance coverage will have it available to you in 2014 or there abouts. Meanwhile the insurance companies will have about 4 years to raise their rates high enough to cover any additional costs they will experience when this whole thing is finally in place.

So far this whole thing sounds like it might have been instigated by the insurance lobby in order to allow insurance companies to raise their rates, and increase their profits during a period of escalating health care costs which they have been desperately figuring out how to deal with.

The sad part about is this whole conspiracy theory would make a heck of a lot more sense than the reality. The reality sadly enough is just another misplaced desire by the government to walk all over our personal freedoms, and convince everyone they are doing it in our best interest.

If this bill passes on the FINAL LAP I am afraid it will become the FINAL STRAW that will ruin our society for years to come.

And believe me no one in the insurance industry, no one in government who truly cares to look at the ramifications, and no one of US is in agreement with what might happen this week, BUT if it does every single one of us will have to live with it for the rest of our lives and sadly so will the generations that follow us.

Vote NO on the Health Care Reform Bill!!