Way back in 2000, I wrote a column listing all of the reasons the U.S. should reform health insurance. I was advocating adoption of single-payer (Medicare for All), and I still believe that would have been the simplest and most effective policy–but politics, as we all know, is the art of the possible, and single-payer wasn’t going to fly.
I had a long list of benefits I predicted would flow from universal access to healthcare. Down in the “and also” part of that list was the following:
Individuals would save money. Auto and homeowners insurance premiums would decline, because the underwriting would no longer need to take the costs of medical care into account.
Researchers are now investigating the actual costs and savings attributable to the Affordable Care Act (as opposed to the political talking points and hype). Rand has just issued one such study:
The Affordable Care Act may result in lower automobile insurance rates according to a study conducted by David Auerbach and colleagues at the RAND Corporation that was published on April 9, 2014.
Auto insurance providers pay for some or all medical injury claims that are sustained in automobile accidents in the United States depending on the terms of the policy. The dollar amounts involved are based on an analysis of the amounts that all U. S. auto insurance providers paid for automobile injuries in 2007. The total was $35 billion.
The entire cost of auto injury health care will be taken over by health insurance providers according to the terms of the Affordable Care Act.
I told you so.
But why does no one address the outlandish annual deductibles on health care policies? The Star article last week reported the CEO of WellPoint “earned” $17 million in only nine months and the CEO of Eli Lilly “earned” $11.2 million for the year. A member of my family, YES – I have mentioned this before, has a $9,600 annual deduction on their family plan. The same policy for single-person coverage has a $4,000 annual deductible. My letter to the editor was printed 3 days later; hacked (edited) and abreviated, but it was printed – omitting the amount of the CEO salaries. How many thousands of policy holders in this company alone are donating to these CEO’s income by paying monthly premiums and ALL of their medical and precription bills which the average family, including my own, do not incur?
Excellent point JoAnn. Insurance company whistle blowers have testified to policies that reward employees for denying claims to sick people who then died without medical care. How many more people might live if CEOs and layers of other corporate officers only made a million per year? Do you suppose those making multi-millions who profit by enforcing policies to deny claims and prescriptions must themselves purchase sleeping pills?
We have a cadillac medical insurance policy with my husband’s company. We choose the most expensive and it doubled our out of pocket deductible to $6,000 a year per family. Doubled it. Dental tops out at 2k a year. And the company is self-insured; so what gives? GREED. That’s all it is. GREED. The system is fixed.
So, shouldn’t all the auto insurers be asking their insureds if they are enrolled in an ACA policy, so they can adjust their auto rates downward? Perhaps when pigs fly.
I’ll trade slightly higher auto insurance premiums for the $4800 annual increase in my major medical premiums thanks to Obamacare! Oh, and the $6000 deductible each could be lower too…
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