Health Insurance Costs Rising, Obama Mad

Okay, it looks like health insurance costs are rising again, supposedly due to rising MEDICAL costs.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37829862/ns/health-health_care/

People who buy their own health insurance report the most recent rate increase requests have averaged 20 percent, according to the survey released Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. (KHN is a part of the foundation.)

The foundation surveyed just over 1,000 people who don't get insurance from their employer, finding that 77 percent reported an increase with their current or previous insurer. Most paid the increase. But 16 percent switched to less expensive plans, either to one offered by their insurer or to one from a different insurer. As a result of those who switched, the average increase for all respondents was 13 percent.

“We’re seeing price increases of 40 percent to 50 percent from some hospitals across the country,” says AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach. “Data show that premium increases are being driven by the soaring cost of medical care and younger, healthier people choosing to drop their coverage during an economic slowdown.”

And PresBo, though even under ObamaCare he has no legal authority to control or regulate health insurance rates, is threatening insurance companies not to raise their rates.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/health/policy/22health.html?ref=todayspaper

President Obama, whose vilification of insurers helped push a landmark health care overhaul through Congress, plans to sternly warn industry executives at a White House meeting on Tuesday against imposing hefty rate increases in anticipation of tightening regulation under the new law, administration officials said Monday.

This is ANOTHER example of PresBo trying to exert power that he DOES NOT HAVE. The President of the United States and, by extension, the Federal government, does not have any legal authority to control, regulate, or even influence insurance rates charged by health insurance companies. If he is concerned that ObamaCare will cause health insurance rates to rise, and if he is concerned that he, the law, and the Democrats who passed it will get blamed... well, maybe he shouldn't have signed the law in the first place.

The law WILL drive prices up, there's no way to get around that. If he'd wanted a different result, he should have pushed for a different law.

Don't you just love the temper tantrums he throws when he's the most powerless to act? Of course, he'll probably take it all out on McChrystal tomorrow...