The success of health insurance reform hinges on "bending the cost curve". Insurers must be regulated in order for meaningful cost controls to be enforced.
New York has the highest health insurance premiums in the nation because in New York State, insurers are totally unregulated. This is destroying middle class families.
New York State is in the end game of the classic insurance death spiral. As such, the state has become ground zero for pay or die healthcare.
New Yorkers need the politicians to do their jobs and regulate this predatory industry.
Why is New York a Pay or die State?
New York has guaranteed issue and community rating. This means the few insurers who still sell in New York, must sell you a policy without any pre-existing condition exclusions, if your insurance has not lapsed for more than 63 days. The young and healthy pay the same as the older and sicker.
So what has happened? As insurance premiums have skyrocketed, the young and healthy have said, (and you can't blame them), this is lunacy to shell out this outrageous premium--I'm young, I won't get sick, and they drop their insurance.
Though as residents of New York (what I laughingly call one of the more merciful states in terms of your right to buy health insurance), health insurance and by extension health care is available only to the affluent, to those who can pay the huge monthly premiums, the highest in the nation. We should be known as the pay or die state.
Pay or die in New York State, where are the politicians?
New York is the most expensive state for small group and individual insurance.
And per the New York Times, "New York has the highest average annual premiums for individual policies: $6,630 for single people and $13,296 for families in mid-2009, more than double the nationwide average."
These are the huge unregulated rate hikes for HMO's (which are cheaper than say a PPO-preferred provider policy) by county.
This leaves an older and sicker population buying insurance in New York, and if we know one thing, the for profit insurance industry, only likes to insure the young and the healthy who never file any claims.
Between 2000 and 2009, New Yorkers with job-based health insurance saw their premiums increase by 92%, while their earnings only increased by 14% during the same period.
I know how bad it is in New York State, because I am a victim of premium rate hikes of 30% and more. But unlike say, California, where the insurance department is empowered to challenge insurers and their predatory rate hikes, and sometimes even win, in New York State the insurance commissioner is neutered.
As part of the political bargain to get insurance companies to support insurance for all regardless of risk, called community rating, New York State deregulated the market, allowing insurers to charge as much as they wanted within certain profit margins. The state can require companies to retroactively refund overcharges to consumers, but it seldom does.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Never once, not one time, have I had a premium refund, not even a nickle.
File and Use: The legacy of George Pataki, Joe Bruno and the corrupt Republican legislature.
The unregulated health insurance market in New York State is destroying families.
In New York State, we have what is known as "file and use".It means just what the nomenclature says. Insurers are totally unregulated. All they do to get their outrageous rate hikes is to the file the new rates with the insurance department and then, they are free to use them.
One would think David Paterson the Democratic governor, the Democratic State Senate and the Democratic Assembly would repeal this Republican catastrophe and restore some semblance of sanity to the health insurance industry in New York.
Well one would be wrong to have such a logical thought. They talk about it, but nothing happens. Not one thing.
Governor Paterson has the repeal of this file and use catastrophe in his budget, but it's being fought tooth and nail, by you guessed it, the insurance industry. File and use cannot die in the thoroughly broken New York legislature.
Attention Political class: New Yorkers need help
Though Governor Paterson supports the repeal of file and use, ain't nothing happening. This is why I have asked Senator Gillibrand, who was appointed by Mr. Paterson and is facing the voters for the first time, to intervene and use her clout to get something done. New Yorkers need help now.
I've made several appeals to Todd Beeton, Gillibrand's internet outreach director, to spend a few minutes with Ms. Gillibrand to discuss this huge problem.
Despite the fact that I'm a constituent and I have been writing for many years about health policy, thus far, I'm still unable to get an appointment. I've received a couple of earnest emails from Todd telling me they're hard at work on getting me into see Senator Gillibrand. I'm still waiting for what I had thought would be a routine and simple request. But, alas, nothing is straightforward in Washington. Perhaps this is why voters are so enraged.
Full disclosure: I've just received an email from Todd, telling me he's still working on my request.
Why do New Yorkers need the help of Senator Gillibrand and Mr. Schumer? Because we have the most dysfunctional legislature in the entire nation (until Arizona reared its ugly head).The New York Legislature does nothing.
In repeated editorials, the New York Times, has urged voters to get rid of every last one (Republican and Democrat alike) of the incompetents in Albany.
Joe Bruno, the former Republican majority leader of the New York State Senate responsible for file and use is going to jail for selling access, why don't Democrats just repeal the travesty which enriched Mr. Bruno?
The insurance commissioner in New York State was neutered by George Pataki and a Republican legislature. The Majority Leader of the New York State Senate at the time, a tight pal of Mr. Pataki, was a thug named Joe Bruno. Guess what? Joe Bruno is headed to jail having been convicted of selling access. And prosecutors want to put this 81-year old dirtbag in prison for eight years, it's got to tell you, this is a naughty boy and his crimes against the people of New York are appalling.
And even knowing that the architect of the giveaway to the insurance industry is going to jail for a long time, the Democrats still do nothing.
The people of the state of New York are left with a legacy of this corruption, and a current legislature which is about as incompetent as anything in the history of the planet. And as always, the people suffer while the politicians do nothing.
A week or so ago, at the New York Kos Meet Up,I ran into Todd Beeton, and again made my plea to meet with Senator Gillibrand. Todd is a really lovely and good guy, and Gillibrand is blessed to have such a fine person on her staff. I have no doubt, he's doing the very best he can to fit me into her hectic schedule. I then dragged Todd into a corner to hear a story which I begged him to relay to his boss.
A self-employed Kossack named Elyse, recognized me and began to tell her frightening health insurance story. She was paying $14,000 a year for insurance which she explained was one-third of her income. She too didn't see any relief for her and all those like her who live in New York State.
Finally after another huge rate hike, she was told she might get into the Freelancers Union. After a ton of paperwork, she was accepted and now has an HMO though still expensive, it's not $14,000.
New Yorkers need help, now!
Slinkerwink and I are very close to launching a web site which we believe will help Americans fight for their rights against the the for-profit health insurance industry and on issues like the one described here. Our goal is to assist insured, uninsured and underinsured Americans.
We welcome and thank you for your support in fighting insurer atrocities.
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