Anthem rate hike
Anthem's recent rate hike has made big news lately. That's a bit surprising because Kaiser's much steeper rate hike went completely unnoticed. Now you know where journalists get their health insurance, I suppose.
I decided to comment on this, not because it is outrageous, or because I was a bit surprised to find people use this piece of news as a way to back the idea that healthcare is not enough of a free market, but because this is a sign of things to come if we do not change course.
The reason given for the rate hike is that healthy, younger customers dropped out, leaving less customers--the less profitable ones--to pay for expenses. So the rate hike is necessary to protect Anthem's profits.
That's a gross simplification. It's not just the younger customers that dropped out but also those who can no longer afford health insurance, lost their jobs, etc.
So the way healthcare is delivered is going to have to change. The rich will be able to continue on paying for health insurance, but with fewer and fewer young, healthy people to drive their cost down. What seems inevitable is the the current healthcare providers and healthcare insurance providers will begin to shrink due to a loss of customers, and an alternative will surface.
I don't know what that alternative is. I just hope it is not called: "just do without."