Premiums up, profits up, employers paying the tab

[PLC1]

I was about to ask if you just make this stuff up then I realized that what you are doing is stating conjecture as if it were confirmed fact. I have no doubt that based on your expectations of the world you believe this to be fact.

However here is a quote describing such a policy:

"A noncancellable individual health insurance plan is one that will cover you as long as you continue to pay the monthly premiums."

You will note that it says a noncancellable policy cannot be canceled as long as you pay.

Read more: Can an Individual Health Insurance Policy Be Canceled? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_8378590_can-health-insurance-policy-canceled.html#ixzz1Zv4lIkZZ


http://www.ehow.com/info_8378590_can-health-insurance-policy-canceled.html

Here is an actual definition:

"Definition of "Noncancellable Policy"

A policy that guarantees you can receive insurance, as long as you pay the premium. It is also called a guaranteed renewable policy."

http://www.totalreturnannuities.com/annuity-glossary/n/noncancellable-policy.html

Here is a second definition from a business dictionary:

"noncancellable insurance policy

insurance contract that cannot be cancelled by the insurance company . Since the insurance policy is a unilateral contract instead of a bilateral contract , the insured may cancel at will. Only the insurer makes a promise of future performance and only the insurer can be charged with breach of contract."

Source: http://www.allbusiness.com/glossaries/noncancellable-insurance-policy/4957354-1.html#ixzz1Zv5dU184


In the countries most regulated industry one would expect that the word noncanellable would mean noncancellable and in this case it actually does.

So, is it possible that a young and healthy person would buy a policy and keep it until they are old? Read this:

Pursuant to 26 CFR 1.801-3 (c) ...Noncancellable Life, Health, or Accident Insurance Policy means “a health and accident contract, or a health and accident contract combined with a life insurance or annuity contract, which the insurance company is under an obligation to renew or continue at a specified premium and with respect to which a reserve in addition to the unearned premiums (as defined in paragraph (e) of this section) must be carried to cover that obligation. Such a health and accident contract shall be considered noncancellable even though it states a termination date at a stipulated age, if, with respect to the health and accident contract, such age termination date is 60 or over. Such a contract, however, shall not be considered to be noncancellable after the age termination date stipulated in the contract has passed. However, if the age termination date stipulated in the contract occurs during the period covered by a premium received by the life insurance company prior to such date, and the company cannot cancel or modify the contract during such period, the age termination date shall be deemed to occur at the expiration of the period for which the premium has been received.”

http://definitions.uslegal.com/n/no...r-accident-insurance-policy-internal-revenue/

It appears that the law covering such policies expects that some may keep a policy until age 60 unless the person is already old when they take the contract in which case they company must honor it anyway.

Can a person who gets one of these when they are young keep it until they are old? Yes. Can he keep it until he is really old? probably not. But we should bear in mind that the stated intent of these polcies is to cover individuals while they are waiting to be enrolled in group policies. Surely, 20, 30, 40 years is enough time for a person to find a way to get a group policy.

[if anyone wonders why the facts I post are so often right and so rarely wrong it is because BEFORE I make a post that includes a fact I usually do an internet search to verify what I am about to say. Most of those times I also bookmark the source so I can later prove that I don't just make stuff up or commit the less serious offense of posting conjecture as fact. The belief that conjecture is fact is imo the most common logical error of our time]

The sticker is the premium. If a young person takes out a policy at age 26 for, say, $300 per month, there is nothing to keep the insurance company from raising that by a factor of 10 over the next few years.

We took out a long term care policy with the expectation that we could continue to keep it at a reasonable rate until there was a real possibility we would need such a policy.

After the premium doubled over a period of 5 or six years, it became obvious that we had made a bad deal, and the best option was to cancel and cut our losses.

The cost of health insurance has doubled in general over the past six or seven years. No one is going to keep renewing a policy at the same rate, or even close to the same rate for that length of time. Even if the insured remains healthy, the contract is a bad deal for the insurer. If the insured develops health issues, then the premium is going to go up even more.

There is nothing conspiratorial or evil about this. The cost of insuring even a healthy person is going up by double digits every year. The cost when there is an issue, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, whatever, is orders of magnitude higher.

The only way to insure that even the middle class has access to medical care is to bring down costs and provide an access to group plans that don't depend on the employer.

The alternative will be a large segment of the population that doesn't have health care, and employers who can't afford to pay the premiums.

 

[Dr.Who]

The sticker is the premium. If a young person takes out a policy at age 26 for, say, $300 per month, there is nothing to keep the insurance company from raising that by a factor of 10 over the next few years.

There may be policies that are noncancellable and can have their rates raised.

But this whole chain of thought was to establish that there are in fact policies that are noncancellable and cannot have their rates raised.

This was posted quite a few posts back and even repeated:

"Noncancellable policies are guaranteed renewable for a stated period at a guaranteed premium. "

 

[Dr.Who]

The cost of health insurance has doubled in general over the past six or seven years. No one is going to keep renewing a policy at the same rate, or even close to the same rate for that length of time. Even if the insured remains healthy, the contract is a bad deal for the insurer. If the insured develops health issues, then the premium is going to go up even more.
.

You might as well say that since interest rates can go up for long periods of time that no bank is ever going to give a person a loan at a low rate because it is a bad deal for the bank. Yet people do get mortgages at 3% that are fixed for 30 years. If the rates go up yet the loan remains at 3% then the bank loses.

Apparently insurers do give people insurance that is noncancellable and cannot have rates go up for long periods of time because over the course of several posts now we have demonstrated that such a policy does in fact exist. I would surmise that they simply bet that most people will eventually move to group plans long before they have lost money on the individual noncancellable guaranteed premium policy.

 

[Dr.Who]

The only way to insure that even the middle class has access to medical care is to bring down costs and provide an access to group plans that don't depend on the employer.

You are so right!!

 

[Openmind]

You are so right!!

YES, and that has been shown to be accomplished very successfully in all other developed cow trie either through a public insurance OR combination of public and private, with the public option providing the REAL incentive to compete for the private insurers, therefore bringing the price of premiums down for everyone.

 

[dogtowner]

YES, and that has been shown to be accomplished very successfully in all other developed cow trie either through a public insurance OR combination of public and private, with the public option providing the REAL incentive to compete for the private insurers, therefore bringing the price of premiums down for everyone.

sure about that ?

Health
Health insurance is the second largest non-life-business line, accounting for 25% of European non-life premiums. This sector is led by the Dutch and German markets, which together account for about two thirds of European health premiums. Preliminary figures for 2009 indicate that, although the growth in health insurance premiums has declined from 6.4% in 2007/08 to 3.3% in 2008/09, overall premiums are still rising, reaching €101bn in 2009, compared to €98bn in 2008 and €93bn in 2007.

Interestingly, health insurance was the only business line in the non-life sector in which total premiums grew in 2009, confirming that health continues to be one of the most dynamic non-life business lines, mainly because of rising demand due to ageing populations and increasing medical costs.

 

[Openmind]

sure about that ?

No one said the cost of health care EVERYWHERE wasn' still climbing!

Again, you are so intent on trying to prove me wrong, that you are grasping at straws!

But why don't you compare the % of increase in those counties with the % ofincreqse in the US?

And. . . You just q
Admitted yourself that universal health care and public options DO NOT destroy private healthcare industries, but bring the costs in in line

So, what's your problem with public options now?

 

[dogtowner]

No one said the cost of health care EVERYWHERE wasn' still climbing!

Again, you are so intent on trying to prove me wrong, that you are grasping at straws!

But why don't you compare the % of increase in those counties with the % ofincreqse in the US?

And. . . You just q
Admitted yourself that universal health care and public options DO NOT destroy private healthcare industries, but bring the costs in in line

So, what's your problem with public options now?

You claimed in this post that socialized medicine brought down premiums.

Originally Posted by Openmind
YES, and that has been shown to be accomplished very successfully in all other developed cow trie either through a public insurance OR combination of public and private, with the public option providing the REAL incentive to compete for the private insurers, therefore bringing the price of premiums down for everyone.

I just proved that your claim is untrue. Somehow that's my problem ?

 

[Openmind]

You claimed in this post that socialized medicine brought down premiums.



I just proved that your claim is untrue. Somehow that's my problem ?

No you didn't!

If you compare the price of insurance between countries that have universal, either fully government sponsored, or mixed (public and private options), you will have to admit that EVERYONE of these countries have a cost of health care that is between 30 and 55% LOWER than our "private system!"

AND, that the increase that occurs in those countries are MUCH LOWER than the increase WE experience with our private insurance, thus WIDENING the gap between universal health care countries and our private for some only system of insurance.

Do you need a drawing? Would you like a few links?

 

[dogtowner]

No you didn't!

If you compare the price of insurance between countries that have universal, either fully government sponsored, or mixed (public and private options), you will have to admit that EVERYONE of these countries have a cost of health care that is between 30 and 55% LOWER than our "private system!"

AND, that the increase that occurs in those countries are MUCH LOWER than the increase WE experience with our private insurance, thus WIDENING the gap between universal health care countries and our private for some only system of insurance.

Do you need a drawing? Would you like a few links?

I realize that attempting to move the goalposts is the only possible response apart from admitting you are wrong. As with Obama and so many other liberals,such admissions are near impossible for you.

 

[Openmind]

I realize that attempting to move the goalposts is the only possible response apart from admitting you are wrong. As with Obama and so many other liberals,such admissions are near impossible for you.

Moving the "goalposts?

It isn't my fault if you can't understand a statement!

By the way, all those "socialist" countries have had their universal health care for so many years, that it wouldn't even make sense to compare what the cost of health care was 60 years ago and today!


You are a really concrete thinker, aren't you? You do have problem grasping concepts unless every word is spoken in a a language that you mind can understand!

You know. . .that is not usually known as a sign of the most intelligent mind!

 

[dogtowner]

Moving the "goalposts?

It isn't my fault if you can't understand a statement!

By the way, all those "socialist" countries have had their universal health care for so many years, that it wouldn't even make sense to compare what the cost of health care was 60 years ago and today!


You are a really concrete thinker, aren't you? You do have problem grasping concepts unless every word is spoken in a a language that you mind can understand!

You know. . .that is not usually known as a sign of the most intelligent mind!

I don't understand your words ? I quoted them back to you twice, perhaps its not me who has comprehension issues. if you want to issue your complete stream of consciousness output to judge then do so but you do not get to just replace statements on a whim.

Rising costs being reported upon are recent, not 60 years old.

Inability to state something and then claim it to have been something materially different is a generally a sign of alcoholism, dementia or just stupididity.

 

[Dr.Who]

No you didn't!

If you compare the price of insurance between countries that have universal, either fully government sponsored, or mixed (public and private options), you will have to admit that EVERYONE of these countries have a cost of health care that is between 30 and 55% LOWER than our "private system!"

AND, that the increase that occurs in those countries are MUCH LOWER than the increase WE experience with our private insurance, thus WIDENING the gap between universal health care countries and our private for some only system of insurance.

Do you need a drawing? Would you like a few links?

I thik the two of you are talking about different things.

Open is saying that the cost or premiums is lower in countries with universal and then infering that if we did that it would bring the cost down here too. That is what she meant by "bringing the price of insurance down for everyone"

Dogt is saying that in those countries the cost of premiums is rising meaning that the price of premiums is not going down.

Dogt is right that their premiums are going up. And open is right that it did not refute what she said.

But Open has not proven her case either. The comparison between countries is too complex for such a simplistic measure to be meaningful. There is also no guarantee that what appears to work (though I would not even say that) there would work here.

[those other countries pay less on paper for health care but they pay for it in so many other ways, like a lower standard of living, less freedom, and more directly in hidden costs, e.g doctors tuition, less access to health care, and less effective health care]

 

[dogtowner]

I thik the two of you are talking about different things.

Open is saying that the cost or premiums is lower in countries with universal and then infering that if we did that it would bring the cost down here too. That is what she meant by "bringing the price of insurance down for everyone"

Dogt is saying that in those countries the cost of premiums is rising meaning that the price of premiums is not going down.

Dogt is right that their premiums are going up. And open is right that it did not refute what she said.

But Open has not proven her case either. The comparison between countries is too complex for such a simplistic measure to be meaningful. There is also no guarantee that what appears to work (though I would not even say that) there would work here.

[those other countries pay less on paper for health care but they pay for it in so many other ways, like a lower standard of living, less freedom, and more directly in hidden costs, e.g doctors tuition, less access to health care, and less effective health care]

Open made the specific claim that socialized medicine medicine lowrered premiums. When shown that this was not the case she attempted to distance herself from that statement claiming that some other thing was the case. She does the same with you all th4 time and you call her on it when she does. Nothing different here.