Look what Aetna sent out to their brokers! A road map for delaying the inevitable effective dates of the Affordable Care Act provisions in order to squeeze all of their ill-gotten gains to the very last drop.
Aetna Email to Insurance Brokers
Aetna is encouraging their brokers to go to clients and renew their existing policies with an off-calendar effective date in order to delay the minimum policy requirements, premium limitations and pre-existing conditions provisions which take effect on January 1, 2014 or the renewal date of the policy. By changing the policy year to something other than December 31st, insurers will delay the effective date to the renewal for the year beginning in 2014 and ending in 2015.
Of course, this won't affect their large corporate clients, but only small businesses and individuals. What a surprise! Even less of a surprise is the more-than-obvious effort to make sure everyone is angry, the economy is slagged because small employers are slammed with higher premiums than before, and just in time for the 2014 midterms, too!
Did I mention that they're going to load up the costs to those employers for benefits they're not providing?
Don't weep too much for Aetna, though. Their profits were right on target and rising for 2012, even though they whined about having to lower expectations for the final quarter.
Wouldn't it be nice if Wall Street, et al understood that half the profits is still a profit, while the rest of us are sucking canal water trying to survive on less money and more expenses?
In 1988, California voters passed an initiative requiring that all drivers buy insurance. Rates at the time were very high, and climbing higher on a daily basis. Insurers had a huge hissy fit over the initiative because it froze rates and forced a 20 percent reduction in following years. But now California's rates have dropped to mirror the national average and are quite affordable, even for young drivers.
Insurers spent millions on litigation and efforts to change the law via voter initiative, to no avail, just like health insurers are doing now. Rest assured that once they actually have to abide by the Affordable Care Act, costs will drop, just like car insurance rates did.
In the meantime, treat them like the selfish, piggy two-year olds they are.
