New Report: Insurance Companies Prosper While Raising Premiums for Families Across the Country
Following recent news that a California insurance company planned Buy Cialis to raise rates for customers as much as 39 percent, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released a new report yesterday, "Insurance Companies Prosper, Families Suffer: Our Broken Health Insurance System."
The report shows that in addition to Anthem Blue Cross in California, dramatic health insurance premium increases are proposed in Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington.
These increases come at a time when insurance company executives are taking in record profits. As the report shows:
"Recent data show that the CEOs of America’s five largest insurers were each compensated up to $24 million in 2008."
Secretary Sebelius details in the report:
Recently, Anthem Blue Cross of California, an insurance company owned by the for-profit company WellPoint, Incorporated, announced that its individual market premiums would rise by as much as 39 percent in the coming months. This shocking increase isn’t unique. Across the country, families have seen their premiums skyrocket in recent years, and experts predict these increases will continue. Sandy Praeger, a leader of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, predicts that we will “see rate increases of 20, 25, 30 percent.”
These massive increases are disturbing examples of the problems that make reforming our health insurance system more important than ever.
Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle.