Tuesday, February 16, 2010

BLUE CROSS RATE HIKE AND REFORM

Both State Senatorial candidate Larry Delarose and I were guests on the Sunday radio program on WKNY this past weekend. Our host Art Ricter tends to focus on the state and national healthcare issue during his program each week. The recent news of Blue Cross in California and the 39% rate hike proposal gave us plenty to talk about. Here's just a taste of what's to come as the debate gets re-energized by their actions. Have a look.

As you can see in the interview, the hosts are more concerned that it could boost support for health care reform than the impact it will have on the policy holders.

Fluegel downplayed the company's $2.7 billion profit in the final quarter of 2009.

Did you hear Payne say: "But Brad this is like Jaws 2, just when you thought it was safe to get out of the health care debate, you brought everybody back into it, why didn't you wait for this to blow over and maybe a year from now try to hike rates."

I thought it was funny when Varney said: "You handed the politicians red meat at a time when health care is being discussed, you gave it to them... You couldn’t see this coming? I mean really, you couldn’t see this coming?"


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This guy is as slimy as they get. What's amazing is even the Fox consultants couldn't shape the conversation to make Blue Cross look good. They certainly tried. That's their job of course. But the company's action is so egregious that the task was just too great.
Maybe they should have just ignored the whole issue and kept their focus on Sarah Palin's fashion sense or death panels in Canada.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

City and County raised rates and cut services - Central Hudson and Blue Cross at least maintained services.

Mike Madsen said...

8:50....I dont see where you can leave out the tremendous profit made by the insurance company when you point out the tax increase of the city & county.
Do you see a $4.6 billion piggy bank somewhere at the expense of taxpayers? I think not.
There's no stock pile of cash anywhere, so if disaster strikes, there'll be hell to pay.
If the health coverage was structured differently, say for New York State or nationally, you could cut 30% off our city & county taxes...but don't tell that to the starving Tea activist. They wont believe you. BTW; Blue Cross is slashing services.

Note: There's a proposal out of the Assembly that is stuck in a Senate committee that would help all of NY in this area. That would end this conversation, but somehow I think we'd still find something else to chat about after taxes went down.

Anonymous said...

The California Legislature is considering a state version of single payer healthcare. With that state in such a mess, their Budget Office sees this as their last option.
You can bet the CEOs of these same insurance and pharmaceutical companies will fight this to the death just like in DC. Its not about service and waiting lines...its about their profits!