Deval Patrick - you're doing it wrong, ctd.

Dammit all, Deval.

Using crappy public opinion of health insurers to your political advantage is a deceptive practice, to be sure, and to boot he clearly doesn't understand how premiums are established.  In fact he probably thinks like these commenters on Boston.com do:

Thanos73 wrote:

ToniCa wrote:
"Deval just doesn't get it. Health care cost increases come from hospitals and doctors. The insurance companies have to increase their rates based on what the hospitals and doctors charge them"

Wow, you really need to put the pipe down. The Insurance companies dictate rates to Doctors and Hospitals, they don't negotiate.

Thanos73 here may want to ask the hundreds of people who work in Provider Contract negotiators and Actuaries at insurance companies what they think about his comment.  Does he really think payers pull premium increases out of thin air? 

Then there's this...

JasonSeacrest wrote:

I have yet to hear from the Insurance carriers WHY they needed these huge increases (yet again.). There's no inflation..so why are only YOUR costs increasing?

Is it to feed the stockholders that 10%+ return on their investment? Nobody else is getting raises, why should you?

EXPLAIN!

SURE, JASON!   In Massachusetts fully-insured plans are Not for Profit, so it's not as if shareholders are making a ton of money every year because (drum roll, please) there are no shareholders!  Why isn't Jason calling his PCP and asking why he's getting that 10% raise every year?   The misconceptions in this debate are staggering. 

Look, I get it: we all saw Erin Brokovich and know there are evil health insurance companies out there that deny services for the really sick and reject coverage for those with pre-existing conditions all while whistling their way to the bank.  Those companies needed to be dealt with and ObamaCare did that for the other 49 states.  But in Massachusetts, land of Non-Profit health, universal care and bans on preX denials?  Why the hell are you stomping all over us?  We're not the bad guys!!

As I've noted before on this blog, this concept of limiting the premiums without addressing what drives 90% of those costs addresses the symptom and not the disease.  Provider contracts are negotiated on a bi-annual basis and those contracts that are already set for this coming year can't be changed because they're, you know, legally binding and all that.  Also premiums are based upon utilization as well and there's been a spike, which the proposed rates were an answer to.  So basically two unmovable forces are crashing head-on into the now-easily-moved-because-Deval-said-so force.

It's a bandaid and one of two things will happen as a result.  1) Payers with already shaky bottom-lines will be in trouble and you could see some smaller plans go out of business, or 2) Rates will go up in subsequent - *ahem* non-election - years to offset the loss caused by this year's rejection.

Another crappy thing about the potential byproducts are their indirect impact on the national health care debate.   For Republican's dying for talking points to bash ObamaCare, this overreach by Deval Patrick and Massachusetts democrats comes at just the right time.  "Look at Massachusetts!   They passed universal health care and within three years were setting costs in the private market!"

My prediction:  when Fallon or one of the other smaller insurers goes out of business, the first headline you'll see on Fox News:  "ObamaCare claims first victim!"  Even though anyone with half a noodle in their head  knows the two are not related. But it doesn't have to have a basis in reality if it sounds scary! 

If this is Deval's Hail Mary for re-election, he may have just tossed it right through the hands of Barrack Obama.