ObamaCare Forces Premium Hikes

Why the Right Fears Transforming America -- and the Left Seeks It
By Dennis Prager

The giveaway regarding presidential candidate Barack Obama's plans for America was his repeated use of the words "fundamentally transform."
Some of us instinctively reacted negatively -- in fact, with horror -- at the thought of fundamentally transforming America.
The "us" are conservatives.
One unbridgeable divide between left and right is how each views alternatives to present-day America. Those on the left imagine an ideal society that has never existed, and therefore seek to "fundamentally transform" America. When liberals imagine an America fundamentally transformed, they envision it becoming a nearly utopian society in which there is no greed, no racism, no sexism, no inequality, no poverty and ultimately no unhappiness. Full Story

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For Comments: editor@srnradio.com

  Health Insurers Plan Hikes
Rate Increases are Blamed on Health-Care Overhaul: White House Questions Logic
Wall Street Journal
By Janet Adamy

Health insurers say they plan to raise premiums for some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul in coming weeks, complicating Democrats' efforts to trumpet their signature achievement before the midterm elections.
Aetna Inc., some BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators.
These and other insurers say Congress's landmark refashioning of U.S. health coverage, which passed in March after a brutal fight, is causing them to pass on more costs to consumers than Democrats predicted.
The rate increases largely apply to policies for individuals and small businesses and don't include people covered by a big employer or Medicare.
About 9% of Americans buy coverage through the individual market, according to the Census Bureau, and roughly one-fifth of people who get coverage through their employer work at companies with 50 or fewer employees, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. People in both groups are likely to feel the effects of the proposed increases, even as they see new benefits under the law, such as the elimination of lifetime and certain annual coverage caps.
Many carriers also are seeking additional rate increases that they say they need to cover rising medical costs. As a result, some consumers could face total premium increases of more than 20%.
While the increases apply mostly to the new policies insurers write after Oct. 1, consumers could be subject to the higher rates if they modify their existing plans and cause them to lose grandfathered status.
The rate increases are a dose of troubling news for Democrats just weeks before an election in which they are at risk of losing their majority in the House and possibly the Senate. Full Story

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