Monday, July 26, 2010

More unintended consequences in your health care

Good grief. We can barely make it through the weekend before we have yet another candidate for Nancy's Nuances: a journey of discovery... things we are finding out about ObamaCare after it has become the law of the land.

Some major health insurance companies have stopped issuing certain types of policies for children, an unintended consequence of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law, state officials said Friday.

Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said in his state UnitedHealthcare and Blue Cross Blue Shield have stopped issuing new policies that cover children individually. Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland said a couple of local insurers in her state have done likewise.

The administration reacted sharply to the insurance pullback. "We're disappointed that a small number of insurance companies are taking this unwarranted and unnecessary step," said Jessica Santillo, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services department.

Starting later this year, the health care overhaul law requires insurers to accept children regardless of medical problems — a major early benefit of the complex legislation. Insurers are worried that parents will wait until kids get sick to sign them up, saddling the companies with unpredictable costs.

(italics, ours)

There is the very reasonable argument that has been made that this phenomena of health insurers dumping people from their health plans is not an unintended consequence whatsoever and that ObamaCare was written to have this happen to easier pave the way for the public option and a full government take-over of the nation's health care system.

After all, who would be heartless enough to leave the children of this country uninsured?

This would assume, though, this administration and House and Senate leadership being competent enough to actually game this out. Tough call.

What is not up for dispute is that 4 years prior to the ObamaCare "benefits" kicking in, we're all ready seeing it's negative consequences as health insurance providers are making rational business decisions at the expense of the American public.

Guaranteed, we will be seeing more and more of these negative consequences, intended or not, in the coming months and years on our way to the great ObamaCare roll out.

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