Senate Confronts Hike In Health Care Premiums

By Laurel Brishel Prichard University of New Mexico/ Talk Radio News Service

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions confronted the issue of ever-rising premiums in the health insurance market and the possible need to enact legislation to block unjustified increases during a hearing Tuesday.

The absence of language specifically barring unfair increases in the health care reform legislation passed last month has prompted Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA.) to propose the Health Insurance Rate Authority Act, which would give the Secretary of Health and Human Services the ability to stop premium or other unjustifiable rate increases.

“Without further legislative action, I am concerned that health insurance companies will continue to do what they have done for far too long: put their profits ahead of people,” Feinstein, who appeared before the committee as a witness, said.

President and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Karen Ignagni, who also testified before the committee, stressed that the members of her association were “fully cognizant” of the burden that high insurance premiums place on Americans.

However, “Health care premiums are a symptom, not a cause,” Ignagni said.

Ignagni insisted that the rising cost of premiums is a result of the increase in the underlying costs of health care. According to Ignagni, in order to keep premiums in check, the government needs to look beyond the insurance market and into the health care fields to see why those cost have been elevated.

“That is what our advocacy in health care reform had been all about. We were very, very concerned [when] we saw costs exploding,” said Ignagni.

Insurance Providers May Soon Have To Reveal Rationale Behind Premium Increases

By Laurel Brishel Prichard-University of New Mexico/ Talk Radio News Service

Health and Human Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters Thursday that through the administration's health care reform effort, health insurance providers could soon be required to publish the rationale behind premium increases on American's policies.

“Right now we have a situation where the top 5 companies filed earning reports of $12.7 billion for 2009 in terms of profit statements and yet pivot around with double digit rate increase," Sebelius said during a conference call with reporters. “People have no bargaining power, they have no leverage and often are desperate in terms of what in the world they are going to do."

According to the secretary, posting the reasons behind raised premiums online will provide additional transparency.

Sebelius's remarks came shortly after a meeting with a variety of the heavy hitting insurance company CEO's and commissioners, including those from UnitedHealth Group, Aetna and WellPoint.

President Barack Obama stopped in during the meeting, according to Sebelius, to share a letter that he received from a cancer survivor in Ohio. Her rates were increased 25 percent last year, which put her insurance premiums at $7,000, with $4,000 in out of pocket costs, and has been informed that her rates will go up another 40 percent this year.

Sebelius quoted Obama saying “that kind of rate increase is just unacceptable and unsustainable.”