- Where is the relief for workers ?
- Clue — not from gas prices — not from Republican leadership
Today’s news ought to shame the bulk of the political establishment – the grifters and true believers in big government a.k.a . Democrat leadership, and the pathetic do nothing opposition a.k.a. “Republican leadership.”
Several analysis came our way today referencing this Wall Street Journal report: Health Insurers Seek Hefty Rate Boosts by Louise Radnofsky. A good example came from Tyler Durden writing in the The Trading Report a publication we have referred to before for their trenchant insights into health care developments.
The title of Durden’s article today is Why The US Consumer Is About To Be Crushed . His analysis is accompanied by several charts graphically emphasizing the situation. His writing is just as graphic (excerpts):
For the past three years, the biggest argument supporters of Obamacare would trot out every single time when faced with opposition to the mandatory tax, would be that despite widespread predictions of soaring prices, US medical care service costs had remained low and even, on occasion, declined (we leave aside the lack of discussion about soaring deductibles . . .
A big reason for this delayed increase in prices is that many insurers were unable to gauge the full base-effect impact of Obamacare on their P&L: after all, effective implementation of Obamacare had been materially delayed thus preventing an apples to apples comparison of incurred fees versus revenues.
All that changed moments ago (sic) when core US inflation finally spiked the most since 2013 driven by a 0.7% monthly surge in medical care service costs: the highest since 2007!
What’s far worse for the troubled US consumer, this is just the beginning. Because after finally digesting the true cost of Obamacare, any recent insurance prime hikes will seem like a walk in the park compared to what is coming.
According to the WSJ, key insurers in some states are proposing hefty rate boosts for plans sold under the federal health law. (here quoting the WSJ article)
David Axene, a fellow at the Society of Actuaries, said some insurers were trying to catch up with the impact of drugs such as Sovaldi, a pricey pill that is first in a new generation of hepatitis C therapies. . . .
Insurance premiums have become a top issue for consumers and politicians as they evaluate how well the law is working. Obama administration officials weathered a storm as some younger, healthier consumers saw their premiums jump when the law rolled out, but were also able to point to modest premiums overall as insurers focused on other ways to keep costs down, such as narrow provider networks.
For 2015 insurance plans, when insurers had only a little information about the health of their new customers, big insurers tended to make increases of less than 10%, while smaller insurers tried offering lower rates to build market share.
Now we would add that the youth employment aspect to this is only part of the insufficient financial base supporting Obamacare. Workers in general have been taking it in the shorts from the Obamacare debacle and not “contributing” — many can’t for reasons by way of no insurance being offered because businesses have reduced employment to part time or eliminated positions entirely or outsourced their labor needs to control costs. And as Durden points out, taxpayers “contributors” can’t get a break:
As for US consumers? Why, they are about to get the short end of the stick again, as any and all “gas savings” now and in the future, will be once again spent on, you guessed it, health insurance.
And what has legislative leadership done to abate this? In Iowa, in bipartisan fashion, they aggravated the situation by raising fuel taxes on the hardest hit, businesses and wage earners paying the bills. Health insurance cost increases will probably eclipse recent fuel cost decreases anyway but to make matters worse, legislators here increased fuel taxes taking away some of that relief.
Is there any wonder as Allahpundit points out:
Pew poll: Oddly enough, Republicans aren’t impressed by the new GOP Congress
Oh, I don’t know. I’m pretty impressed by the lengths to which they’ll often go to stage a performance of “failure theater.” Bob Corker rewrote the Constitution’s Treaty Clause so that Obama’s Iran deal can take effect if only one-third of the Senate supports it instead of two-thirds. Who could fail to be impressed by hubris like that?
To sum up the year thus far: They caved on executive amnesty by funding DHS, they caved on the Iran deal by passing Corker’s bill, then they caved on executive amnesty again by confirming Loretta Lynch, and now they’re preparing to cave on ObamaCare subsidies if the Supreme Court ends up shooting those down in King v. Burwell. All in the name of showing 2016 voters that the GOP can govern without any new shutdowns or debt-ceiling standoffs.
No wonder at all.
R Mall
should we try a 68th time to defund it? 🙂
Phil, you should take a more glass half full approach here. You should consider yourself one of the 5% who approve of this Congress. All they do is walk in lockstep with Barack (who you worship). Even when those mean spirited Democrats try to block major legislation, the Republicans are there to bail him out.