Feeling good? Lucky you. Got a mysterious pain somewhere? Uh-oh. Here go your savings.
The nation’s major health insurers are barreling into a third year of record profits, enriched in recent months by a lingering recessionary mind-set among Americans who are postponing or forgoing medical care.
The UnitedHealth Group, one of the largest commercial insurers, told analysts that so far this year, insured hospital stays actually decreased in some instances. In reporting its earnings last week, Cigna, another insurer, talked about the “low level” of medical use.
Yet the companies continue to press for higher premiums, even though their reserve coffers are flush with profits and shareholders have been rewarded with new dividends. Many defend proposed double-digit increases in the rates they charge, citing a need for protection against any sudden uptick in demand once people have more money to spend on their health, as well as the rising price of care. ...NYT
One thing you have to admire: the chutzpah. These guys will try anything to justify greed. This is what John Boehner want to make sure you have in your future: medical care that makes you homeless and/or keeps you on hold for the rest of your life. If you live.
The result has been that people have cut back their trips to the doctor. That's good in one way: most Americans have been very profligate in their use doctors and medicine, overusing medical care for years -- "an MRI for every headache." But it's bad in a big way: delayed care pushes costs up . And it can kill.
It's the Republican death panel, and we're standing before it right now.
____
Gloom about the economy is shortening Medicare's life expectations. When today's youngest Medicare recipient turn 78, Medicare dies. The gloom is probably in the forecast rather than in the economy itself, but there it is: a possible cut-off.
Medicare’s main trust fund will be depleted by 2024, five years earlier than projected last year, according to the report by the trustees overseeing the program — largely because they have downgraded their expectations of economic growth. ... While Social Security appears to be off the table, both sides [in Congress] have acknowledged that some changes to Medicare will be needed to get a debt limit deal through Congress. ... WaPo
____
Paul Krugman points out that Republicans can dish it out but they can't take it -- most noticeably with respect to Medicare.
