Health premiums could rise 17 pct for young adults

Health premiums could rise 17 pct for young adults
By CARLA K. JOHNSON (AP) – 1 day ago
CHICAGO — Under the health care overhaul, young adults who buy their own insurance will carry a heavier burden of the medical costs of older Americans — a shift expected to raise insurance premiums for young people when the plan takes full effect.
Beginning in 2014, most Americans will be required to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. That's when premiums for young adults seeking coverage on the individual market would likely climb by 17 percent on average, or roughly $42 a month, according to an analysis of the plan conducted for The Associated Press. The analysis did not factor in tax credits to help offset the increase.
The higher costs will pinch many people in their 20s and early 30s who are struggling to start or advance their careers with the highest unemployment rate in 26 years.
Consider 24-year-old Nils Higdon. The self-employed percussionist and part-time teacher in Chicago pays $140 each month for health insurance. But he's healthy and so far hasn't needed it.
The law relies on Higdon and other young adults to shoulder more of the financial load in new health insurance risk pools. So under the new system, Higdon could expect to pay $300 to $500 a year more. Depending on his income, he might also qualify for tax credits.
At issue is the insurance industry's practice of charging more for older customers, who are the costliest to insure. The new law restricts how much insurers can raise premium costs based on age alone.
Insurers typically charge six or seven times as much to older customers as to younger ones in states with no restrictions. The new law limits the ratio to 3-to-1, meaning a 50-year-old could be charged only three times as much as a 20-year-old.
The rest will be shouldered by young people in the form of higher premiums.
Higdon wonders how his peers, already scrambling to start careers during a recession, will react to paying more so older people can get cheaper coverage.
"I suppose it all depends on how much more people in my situation, who are already struggling for coverage, are expected to pay," Higdon says. He'd prefer a single-payer health care system and calls age-based premiums part of the "broken morality" of for-profit health care.
To be sure, there are benefits that balance some of the downsides for young people:
_ In roughly six months, many young adults up to age 26 should be eligible for coverage under their parents' insurance — if their parents have insurance that provides dependent coverage.
_ Tax credits will be available for individuals making up to four times the federal poverty level, $43,320 for a single person. The credits will vary based on income and premiums costs.
_ Low-income singles without children will be covered for the first time by Medicaid, which some estimate will insure 9 million more young adults.
But on average, people younger than 35 who are buying their own insurance on the individual market would pay $42 a month more, according to an analysis by Rand Health, a research division of the nonpartisan Rand Corp.
The analysis, conducted for The Associated Press, examined the effect of the law's limits on age-based pricing, not other ways the legislation might affect premiums, said Elizabeth McGlynn of Rand Health.
Jim O'Connor, an actuary with the independent consulting firm Milliman Inc., came up with similar estimates of 10 to 30 percent increases for young males, averaging about 15 percent.
"Young males will be hit the hardest," O'Connor says, because they have lower health care costs than young females and older people who go to doctors more often and use more medical services.
Predicting exactly how much any individual's insurance premium would rise or fall is impossible, experts say, because so much is changing at once. But it is possible to isolate the effect of the law's limits on age-based pricing.
Some groups predict even higher increases in premiums for younger individuals — as much as 50 percent, says Landon Gibbs of ShoutAmerica, a Tennessee-based nonprofit aimed at mobilizing young people on health care issues, particularly rising costs.
Gibbs, 27, a former White House aide under President George W. Bush, founded the bipartisan group with former hospital chain executive Clayton McWhorter, now chairman of a private equity firm. McWhorter finances the organization. The group did not oppose health care reform, but stressed issues like how health care inflation threatens the future of Medicare.
"We don't want to make this a generational war, but we want to make sure young adults are informed," Gibbs says.
Young people who supported Barack Obama in 2008 may come to resent how health care reform will affect them, Gibbs and others say. Recent polls show support among young voters eroding since they helped elect Obama president.
Jim Schreiber, 24, was once an Obama supporter but now isn't so sure. The Chicagoan works in a law firm and has his own tea importing business.
He pays $120 a month for health insurance, "probably pure profit for my insurance company," he says. Without a powerhouse lobbying group, like AARP for older adults, young adults' voices have been muted, he says. He's been discouraged by the health care debate.
"It has made me disillusioned with the Democrats," he said.
Ari Matusiak, 33, a Georgetown University law student, founded Young Invincibles with other Obama campaign volunteers to rally youth support for health care overhaul.
Age rating fails as a wedge issue because the pluses of the new law outweigh the minuses for young adults, Matusiak says.
"And we're not going to be 26, 27, 33 forever," Matusiak says. "Guess what? We're going to be in a different demographic soon enough."
Nationally representative surveys for the Kaiser Family Foundation have consistently found that young adults are more likely than senior citizens to say they would be willing to pay more so that more Americans could be insured. But whether that generosity will endure isn't clear.
"The government approach of — we'll just make someone get health care and pay for someone else — definitely NOT what I want," says Melissa Kaupke, 28, who is uninsured and works from her Nashville home.
In Chicago, Higdon says he supports the principles of the health care overhaul, even if it means he will pay more as a young man to smooth out premium costs for everyone.
"Hopefully I'll be old someday, barring some catastrophic event. And the likelihood of me being old is less if I don't have a good health plan."

Boehner: ObamaCare includes hiring 16,000 new IRS officers to track everyone's bank accounts

Boehner: ObamaCare includes hiring 16,000 new IRS officers to track everyone's bank accounts Boehner on Fox. ObabaCare includes an additional $10 billion to hire 16,000 new IRS agents to track your bank accounts to ensure you are paying for mandated health insurance and paying what the government deems sufficient. Just what we need. Wonder what else they'll be tracking in your bank accounts. Apparently, the $ 828 billion bailout of 2009 already gives the IRS the power to track your private accounts.

OOPS ! WHAT WAS I THINKING?

FIRE PELOSI

THE COW AND THE ICE CREAM

THE COW AND THE ICE CREAM

ONE OF THE BEST EXPLANATIONS OF WHY OBAMA WON THE ELECTION --From a teacher in the Nashville area "We are worried about 'the cow' when it is all about the 'Ice Cream.'
The most eye-opening civics lesson I ever had was while teaching third grade this year...
The presidential election was heating up and some of the children showed an interest. I decided we would have an election for a class president.
We would choose our nominees.. They would make a campaign speech and the class would vote.
To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class members.
We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should have.
We got many nominations and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot.
The class had done a great job in their selections. Both candidates were good kids.
I thought Jamie might have an advantage because he got lots of parental support.
I had never seen Olivia's mother.
The day arrived when they were to make their speeches. Jamie went first.
He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place. He ended by promising to do his very best.
Everyone applauded and he sat down.
Now is was Olivia's turn to speak.
Her speech was concise. She said, "If you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream." She sat down.
The class went wild. "Yes! Yes! We want ice cream."
She surely would say more. She did not have to.
A discussion followed. How did she plan to pay for the ice cream? She wasn't sure.
Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it... She didn't know.
The class really didn't care. All they were thinking about was ice cream..
Jamie was forgotten.. Olivia won by a landslide.
Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth he offered ice cream and 52 percent of the people reacted like nine year olds.
They want ice cream.
The other 48 percent know they're going to have to feed the cow and clean up the mess."
This is the ice cream Obama promised us!
Remember, the government cannot give anything to anyone -- that they have not first taken away from someone else.
Did you vote for the ice cream?

Letter from Roy Blunt

Last night I voted with Missourians for our health care and our freedom, voting against the more than $2 trillion government takeover of health care. You told me you opposed ObamaCare and I fought for you.
The bill the Nancy Pelosi Democrats crammed down our throats cuts Medicare for seniors by $523.5 billion; raises job-killing taxes by $569.2 billion; fails to protect TRICARE for veterans, military retirees and their families; forces the IRS to hire 16,500 new government employees to enforce the new taxes; and includes the scandalous deal-making used to pass the bill including the Louisiana Purchase, Cornhusker Kickback and Gator-Aid.
My expected Democrat opponent Robin Carnahan rubberstamped the ObamaCare bill saying she would have voted "Yes" for this government takeover of health care. Today Carnahan endorsed the worst tactics of pressure and persuasion that were used to pass the bill.
This fight is far from over. I'll keep working to repeal this colossal government takeover of health care and replace it with real solutions like putting insurance into a more competitive and pro-consumer market, across state lines; medical liability reform; and cooperative purchasing plans to cut insurance costs that are hurting small businesses.
I can't win this fight without your help, your support and your resources. Last year when I voted against the job-killing cap and trade national energy tax, Robin Carnahan's liberal special interests spent more than $1.3 million in negative and false ads attacking me for standing up for Missourians. Those same liberal extremists will likely spend millions more attacking me for opposing the government takeover of health care.

Now a word from me

Democrats your on notice, You shoved Obama Care down our throats in March, and now year going to brake it off in you ass November 2010. Dem's YOUR FIRED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kevin Bennett

Department of Military Correctness: No Flag for You

Department of Military Correctness: No Flag for You

U.S. troops storm Haiti; raise Old Glory to mark their triumphant occupation! This is, apparently, the twisted view of the Obama administration, which has now banned flying the American flag at U.S. military relief compounds in Haiti. When asked for an explanation, the U.S. government's Haiti Joint Information Center said, "We are not here as an occupation force, but as an international partner committed to supporting the government of Haiti on the road to recovery." Never a truer statement was spoken.

However, that merely obscures the real reasons for the flag ban. Every other military compound in Haiti flies the flag of its nation, as it should. So why is the flag of the United States of America, a nation which has donated far more in money and man-hours to assist Haiti in earthquake recovery than any other nation on earth, the only flag banned from flying in Haiti? The answer, of course, is that our Apologist-in-Chief is ashamed of America, its history, its exceptionalism, and especially its military. November 2012 can't arrive fast enough.