( - promoted by Dean Barker)
After more than a year of debating health care reform, it's easy to lose sight of what motivated us to act in the first place. But the recent news about insurance rate hikes for New Hampshire families and small businesses perfectly illustrates the urgent need to reform the insurance system in this country.
According to a recent report by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, WellPoint, under the banner of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, intends to increase individual insurance rates in New Hampshire by 12 to 13 percent and has already increased premiums in the small group market by 17 percent. Meanwhile, WellPoint's net income in 2009 was up 90.5 percent over 2008.
New Hampshire is not alone. Insurance companies across the country are raising rates on American families, including by a whopping 39 percent in California. And another recent report by Health Care for America Now! shows that the top five largest health insurance companies made $12.2 billion in profits last year, while dropping coverage for 2.7 million people.
It is indefensible for insurance companies to raise rates on families and small business owners while at the same time posting massive profits. I recently sent a letter to WellPoint CEO Angela Braly asking her to justify their rate increases. I have also asked the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to open an investigation into the matter.
Every single day I hear from people in New Hampshire about the crippling cost of health insurance. These people are desperate for help. As you know, New Hampshire already has some of the highest insurance rates of any state in the nation. Many small businesses are unable to afford insurance for their employees or have to pass more and more of the costs onto them, and more and more families have to make incredibly hard financial decisions about health insurance coverage. These families, small businesses, and our state's economy simply can't afford these drastic rate increases.
One recent letter I received is from Robert Tourigny, the Executive Director of NeighborWorks Greater Manchester. Over the last five years, Robert has seen small group health insurance premiums rise drastically, to the point where health care costs now consume nine percent of his operating budget and have led to an unavoidable reduction in benefits and increased cost to his employees.
He wrote:
Given these difficult economic times, our employees are all grateful to be working and to have health insurance. Every day we see people who come into our office who have neither. These ever increasing costs must end. We need to have a predictable cost that can adequately cover our workers. I urge you and your fellow members of Congress to put an end to this madness as soon as possible so that businesses such as ours can provide health benefit options to our employees that are reasonable, and perhaps most importantly, have predicable costs.
We cannot continue to allow middle class families and small businesses to find themselves in this impossible position. The legislation we are fighting to pass will require insurance companies to spend premium dollars on health care, not CEO salaries or Washington lobbyists. And if they don't spend enough of the premiums they collect on actual care, they will have to send rebate checks to consumers. The legislation will also stop insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and cutting people off when they get sick.
These reforms are long-overdue, and after a year of health care negotiations, it's time to finish the job.
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