Insurance Policies Not Worth Keeping - By The NYT Editorial Board

[DonViejo]

EDITORIAL

Insurance Policies Not Worth Keeping

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Published: November 2, 2013

Congressional Republicans have stoked consumer fears and confusion with charges that the health care reform law is causing insurers to cancel existing policies and will force many people to pay substantially higher premiums next year for coverage they don’t want. That, they say, violates President Obama’s pledge that if you like the insurance you have, you can keep it.

Mr. Obama clearly misspoke when he said that. By law, insurers cannot continue to sell policies that don’t provide the minimum benefits and consumer protections required as of next year. So they’ve sent cancellation notices to hundreds of thousands of people who hold these substandard policies. (At issue here are not the 149 million people covered by employer plans, but the 10 million to 12 million people who buy policies directly on the individual market.)

But insurers are not allowed to abandon enrollees. They must offer consumers options that do comply with the law, and they are scrambling to retain as many of their customers as possible with new policies that are almost certain to be more comprehensive than their old ones.

Indeed, in all the furor, people forget how terrible many of the soon-to-be-abandoned policies were. Some had deductibles as high as $10,000 or $25,000 and required large co-pays after that, and some didn’t cover hospital care.

Full Editorial
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/opinion/sunday/insurance-policies-not-worth-keeping.html?hp&rref=opinion

[SHRED]

1. Yet the shrieking from the RW continues unabated

[AllyCat]

2. For those griping about this, I am starting to believe there are folks

who WANT to be robbed, swindled, and taken advantage of. But they believe the media who discusses this ad nauseum. And they are MAD, I tell ya, mad!!

[annabanana]

3. It's aGAWDGIVEN right

to get royally screwed

Doncha no

[TxDemChem]

4. I appreciate the article, but some of the comments

are just plain ignorant. First , many of the posters seem to not be aware that there are policies both inside and outside of the exchange. I am almost certain that they are quoting numbers directly from their insurers rather than looking on the exchange for plans (I know, the website still has glitches), but come on. The plans don't kick in until January 1st. They have nearly 2 months to do some research.

Sounds like a whole lot of lazy right wingers who want to repeat BS talking points they heard on Faux Noise. It's just plain ignorance, stupidity and laziness.

[SunSeeker]

5. K & R