Take Ohio, where a young, healthy 25-year-old living in Columbus can purchase insurance from WellPoint today for about $52 per month in the individual market. WellPoint’s actuaries calculate the bill will rise to $79 because Democrats are going to require it to issue policies to anyone who applies, even if they’ve waited until they’re sick to buy insurance. Then they’ll also require the company to charge everyone nearly the same rate, bringing the premium to $134. Add in an extra $17, since Democrats will require higher benefit levels, and a share of the new health industry taxes ($6), and monthly premiums have risen to $157, a 199% boost.
Meanwhile, a 40-year-old husband and wife with two kids would see their premiums jump by 122%—to $737 from $332—while a small business with eight employees in Franklin County would see premiums climb by 86%.
The reason is simple, the silly mandates in the Baucus bill that require insurance to be equalized for everybody. As a man, you’ll be required to by a policy that covers pap smears and obstetrics. As a woman, you’ll be forced to buy a coverage that covers prostate exams. As a teetotaler, you’ll pay for substance abuse coverage. And so on. Also, everybody will have to pay the same rate. Imagine what would happen to your car insurance rates if you had to pay the same rate as a drunk driver with 19 DUI’s; because it was “fair.”
Also, insurance companies can no longer deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions. Imagine what your car insurance rates would be if someone could wreck a car and then buy insurance to pay to fix it.
Gay Patriot makes the comprehensive point:
We’re going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose head says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn’t read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn’t read it, and who smokes, with funding administered by a Treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s nearly broke.
Sounds about right.
