Word: anthem
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...From what I know about California regulations and rules, [Anthem's proposed rates] probably will meet the letter of the law," says Marian Mulkey, a senior program officer at the California Health Care Foundation, which studies the state's health-insurance market, among other topics...
Bolstering the argument that Anthem Blue Cross will likely be able to proceed with its massive rate hikes is the fact that these kinds of increases are nothing new. The company made news for similar double-digit spikes in 2005, for example, and a recent study found that average individual insurance premiums in California increased 23% between 2002 and 2006, even as the actuarial value of these plans dropped considerably. (This means consumers are paying more for less coverage than before...
Regardless of what actually happens with Anthem Blue Cross's rate increases, the news has served as a useful tool for an Administration now making perhaps its hardest and last push for federal health care reform. After the Los Angeles Times broke the Anthem Blue Cross story, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius lambasted the company. First she publicly asked it to justify the increases, and when the company offered a five-page explanation, she responded by saying, "It remains difficult to understand how a company that made $2.7 billion in the last quarter of 2009 alone can justify...
Sebelius also released a report Thursday on proposed rate increases in six other states. And three days after launching his new Twitter feed, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs used the tool to link to news coverage about the Anthem Blue Cross kerfuffle. "BIG insurance rate increases and MORE coming," wrote Gibbs, who said that such increases would serve as the "backdrop" for a bipartisan health care summit scheduled for Feb. 25. There, the Democrats will argue that without a massive, federal overhaul of the health care system and insurance market, costs will continue to rise dramatically and unpredictably...
...political ramifications of the Anthem Blue Cross story don't end at the Beltway. Steve Poizner, the California insurance commissioner who has been aggressively pursuing Anthem, is running for governor, though he is trailing far behind fellow GOP candidate (and former eBay CEO) Meg Whitman. Poizner says he supports reform of the U.S. health care system but generally opposes the Democratic House and Senate bills. Dave Jones, a Democratic state assemblyman, is running to replace Poizner in the commissioner's office on a platform of changing California law to require health insurers to get state approval before increasing rates...