Insurers Set To Raise Prices, Walk Away From Consumers: Goldman Report

The market concentration for health insurance is so monopolized in some areas that insurance companies are willing to raise prices and lose customers in an effort to improve their bottom line, a leading insurance broker told Wall Street analysts on Wednesday.

In a conference call organized by Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, Steve Lewis, a highly regarded broker at the world's third largest insurance broker, Willis, painted a picture of the health insurance market in which employers seem likely to be priced out of coverage.

Noting that "price competition" between insurers was "down from a year ago," Lewis relayed that "incumbent carriers seem more willing than ever to walk away from existing business."

The phenomenon of insurers pricing their policies beyond where consumers can afford it seems to be already taking place. Last month Anthem Blue Cross told customers it would hike their health insurance premiums by as much as 39 percent (with the expectation that some would drop coverage altogether). In December, the Huffington Post reported that Aetna was planning on losing more than 600,000 customers by raising prices on their consumers in 2010. <snip>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/05/insurers-set-to-raise-pri_n_487684.html

And yet, they are prepared to serve us up to this criminal element on a silver platter with the full weight of federal law behind it. And no Public Option to provide the competition to put a stop to some of this.

It boggles the mind. But thank you for posting this!

This is obviously a RICO matter. It's time for feds to seize computers and files in the executive offices of insurers.

The fraud on consumers is heinous. It's warfare.

People will go to jail if there's a special prosecutor with any kind of ethics, and it will go all the way to the top.

It's time to get CC and lobbying dollars out of our government!

It is TIME!:kick:

The parallel to this if it were in the auto industry would be:

A car dealership sells you a car but gives you a coffin.

We lost our health insurance last year when DH lost his job. We both have pre-existing conditions. We can't get insurance through normal means. Our premiums for our state's high-risk pool? $1400 per month.

I'm not sure what it's going to take to get President Obama to understand that the system is broken, forcing people to buy insurance with the same safeguards for consumers he put onto oh, TARP and the Making Home Affordable program (namely, NONE,) WILL NOT WORK!

What the hell is it the 50 million uninsured (and another 50 million insured who can't afford to use the insurance they have,) are supposed to do?

:mad:

against reform:


Surely Goldman Sachs can be trusted?

Yeah, right!

:rofl:




edited for clarity

are accurate. Or have you read they plan to lower prices and find a way to let more people in?

Do you expect them to without reform and the force of law?

who was implying the story was not credible because the Goldman guy quoted was advocating against reform.

The response I responded to was questioning the validity (that means credibility which means believability) of the report I posted cause it quotes a guy from Goldman. I said the report was still credible unless he had some evidence the insurers were planning to lower their prices and find a way to let more people in. See, my problem was the poster to whom I replied was engaging in a common, disingenuous debate technique we see here, often, which involves killing the messenger rather than addressing the message. My response was not arguing that the insurers have any plans to lower prices or let more people in but, rather, that they plan to do just what the article says they are planning regardless of the source who it reporting it. Do you see? My question was rhetorical. IOW, are you saying this is not the insurance companies' plan because it was Goldman reporting it? And does that little smiley thing mean they are lying and insurers are not going to do this?

Oh, look! That was you! Deriding the report cause it was quoting a Goldman guy who was telling us the insurance companies were planning rate hikes and customer dumps. So, it's a Goldman guy. Is he telling the truth or not?

and didn't get "linked" too death! :rofl:

K&R on the original post.

and all the other silly links that end up substituting for a brain. ;)

Those Links are Hilarious!, I just wish there were More!, because, there always is time during a busy day to click on mindless crap!

:rofl:

Brilliant!

I am not familiar with this particular analyst, but based on this article he appears to know what he's talking about.

No question that Goldman Sachs is an extremely corrupt corporation, but not every analyst working for them should be painted with your broad brush. The same goes for Citi, which has provided some very excellent market insight over the past year, despite the rampant and festering evil at the top of the IB division.

Charming. :D

just as before and now, we'll have little recourse.

:(