When Is Regulation Not Regulation? When It's License To Steal!!!

You may have heard a recent uproar over some health insurance carriers increasing premiums by double digits for the second year in a row. (Do you recall that ObamaCare was supposed to reign in our costs?) Our illustrative Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, has figured out how to fix that. She just decided that whenever an insurance carrier wants to increase premiums 10% or more that they have to get her agency's approval. Sounds all 'controlling' doesn't it? Well perhaps ... until you look at the math.

That means insurance companies can increase their premiums by 9.9% every year and Ms. Sebelius won't care. A 9.9% increase may not sound like a big number but what's to stop an insurance company from doing that every year? Do you have a clue what that does to your premium costs? Here's how a $500/month premium will increase allowing 'only' a 9.9% increase every year:

• Year zero: $500/month
• Nine years later: $1,064
• 20 years later: $3,006
• 25 years later: $4,819
• 30 years later: $7,725

Question for those of you around 30 years of age: have you factored into your savings/career plan the need to pay $7,725 per month ($93,000/year) for insurance premiums when you're 60?

Setting a 10% 'limit' on premium increases is NOT regualtion AT ALL!!! It's LICENSE for insurance companies to increase rates by 10% even if they don't need to! Where is the incentive to control costs in this kind of regulation? Do these people in DC understand anything about math, economics or human nature? Talk about clueless!

BTW, here's the reference link for this blog: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/268143/obama-s-insurance-price-controls-kevin-d-williamson