Health Insurers Push Premiums Sharply Higher

Letter to the Editor

New York Times

letters@nytimes.com

September 28^th, 2011

Dear editor,

The “Health Insurers Push Premiums Sharply Higher” (Abelston and Bernstein, Sept. 27^th) article was shocking given the nation’s increasing focus on universal healthcare. What was even more shocking was the comment made by the spokeswoman for Emblem, Ilene Margolin: “…I’m not saying this is pretty, but there were actuarially sound reasons.” Increasing health insurance premiums solely on the basis of actuarial calculations seems rather counterproductive and even inhumane given that the country’s economy is in recession and unemployment rates are soaring. It is stated that this increase will help insurance providers with the rebounding medical costs when the economy recovered. However, with medical care becoming increasingly unaffordable and companies hiring fewer people due to the cost of coverage, it seems that these high insurance premiums may become the cause of a worse recession.

Nevertheless, with the United States’ purely market based approach to health care, costs will continue to rise. Private insurances seem to be trapped in a quandary between maintaining affordable premiums and making a profit. That said it is time that the government stepped in an imposed policies that regulated health care costs like the health care system in Japan. This is a time when the country needs healthy and employed citizens to boost the economy and health insurances should not be an impediment to this need.

Sincerely,

Sivapratha Nagappan Chettiar

Original Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/business/28insure.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=health