Affordable Care Act Could Have ‘Modest’ Effect on Other Insurance Costs

April 23, 2014

  • April 23, 2014 at 1:31 pm
    TN says:
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    I don’t see how it would lower auto premiums, just the opposite. The med mal premiums go up, causing a spike in medical costs. Even if the health care insurance cover them, they have a right to subrogation against at fault parties in most states and some carriers on a federal level. As for No Fault and Med Pay coverages, a lot of health care providers won’t even consider payment of medical bills due to an auto accident until they’ve either ruled out first party medical coverage or confirmed the exhaustion of same.

    • April 23, 2014 at 2:08 pm
      Agent says:
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      TN, had the ACA addressed tort reform for Medical Malpractice when it was passed, perhaps we would have seen a reduction in that coverage. It was not addressed because of the Trial Lawyers lobby and most in Congress are lawyers who didn’t want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Also, I see fake Workers Compensation claims rising because people with Obamacare have large deductibles, high out of pocket expenses. Why not just get WC to cover it 100%?

      • April 24, 2014 at 8:57 am
        Ron says:
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        Agent,

        I agree with your assessment of trort reform lower medical malpractice poremiums.

        However, I do not foresee a significant enough spike in false WC claims for the reason you presented to make much of a difference. There is already enough incentive to file fake WC claims, it is called getting paid while you are not able to work or getting coverage when you do not have any health insurance. There is far more money in that than saving a deductible.

  • April 23, 2014 at 2:30 pm
    insexpert@yaho.com says:
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    Agent- Check out the actual Rand report for the answer. Assuming they have NO insurance now, why would you expect fake w/c to go UP? Haven’t they been faking it for years under your premise? W/c should go down if anything…despite the deductible, there s/b less need to fake, especially for major injuries or later in the year when the deductible is met. And there are vehicles to address the deductible that w/b a lot more attractive than facing prison for faking w/c as they might have in the past or would in the future. The vast majority of medical uninsureds are not crooks.

    As for auto med TN, check out the Rand report for your answers. Their logic is sound. Break a finger building a shed with no ACA and you go to the emergency room saying you slammed it in a car door – bill my auto carrier. Have ACA; bill ACA.

    Rand Report nails it, even includes the proper caveats and disclaimers. Facinating. The influx of ACA money will more than cover med malpractice bills for doctors. The write-offs for “indigents” will drop = more revenue.

    • April 23, 2014 at 2:50 pm
      Agent says:
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      The report also says there is considerable “uncertainty” with the effects. Rand and others being paid for these reports really don’t know any more than others how the ACA will affect American consumers, companies. What we do know is that the promised savings of $2,500 on premiums for the average family is a total myth. In fact, the President lied 39 times on tape about keeping your plan, keeping your doctor and a family savings on their premiums. Any law passed in a partisan way and lied repeatedly about it is not going to be good for anyone in this country.

      • April 24, 2014 at 1:38 pm
        Captain Planet says:
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        Check this out – I kept my doctor and my family is saving roughly 6% than last year. Deductible has stayed the same and coverage is broader. For some people, it’s working. No one lied to me. Further, a non-Fox related source required on the “promise” to drop an average family’s premium by $2,500 in the first year. I’m so old, I remember the savings being long term, not something to be realized in the first few months of its full-blown implementation. If your favorite football team starts off slow but eventually wins The Superbowl, isn’t that a positive outcome? Sure, the beginning of the season was subpar and more rough than you would have liked, but man, what a celebration at the end!

        • April 24, 2014 at 2:04 pm
          TN says:
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          Well they sure fibbed to me. I went from -almost- paying 12k a year in premiums to paying -over- 12k a year for an HMO. So if there are any discounts out there, they’re hiding pretty darn well.

        • May 2, 2014 at 5:59 pm
          Agent says:
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          I am glad it is working out for you Planet, but you are very naïve. For every one person that benefits, there are thousands that don’t and end up with bad plans, high deductibles, high out of pockets and less choice of doctors and hospitals. I suppose you believe Harry Reid saying all the horror stories are lies.

    • April 29, 2014 at 2:16 pm
      FFA says:
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      Ron & insexp – The more the comp system gets abused, the more people think its ok to abuse the system and then it snow balls into – well something like IL Comp system. Comp Commissioners easily bought. Then Comp reform reforming the carrier writing under $10,000 monoline then losing reinsurance and a full blow withdrawal of Mono Line carriers under $20,000. Total Loss in premium volume is up over $1Mill for my agency in a 30 month time frame. Most went back in the pool causing an increase of actual cost.

      Other state can learn something fro ILL if they are paying attention. The lesson is easy – look what IL did and then do the opposite.

      • May 1, 2014 at 3:35 pm
        Libby says:
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        IL allows employees to tap into the Employers Liability coverage due to some types of construction claims. I’ve never seen an EL claim except in the state of IL. And they’re big, too.

        • May 2, 2014 at 6:02 pm
          Agent says:
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          I have not seen an EL claim in Texas either, but I have seen plenty of fake WC claims. Texas Mutual catches these fakes and prosecutes them. Every month, I see the stories on people faking WC to try to ride the gravy train. Usually they are dumb and get caught water skiing when they said they were totally disabled.

  • April 24, 2014 at 8:44 am
    Whiz says:
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    Given the already high cost of liability, a 5% bump is a huge amount of dollars and just one more Obamacare cost that is hidden within this abomination of a legislative plan.



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