Guest MINDSETTER™ Bill Randell: ObamaCare will Increase Mass. Insurance Costs
Saturday, February 25, 2012
The waivers made headlines recently when catholic hospitals, universities and charities asked for a waiver not to provide contraceptive coverage as mandated under ACA, based on the fact it directly contradicts church doctrine. But unlike the other 1500 granted waivers, the White House denied the waiver and delayed the implementation of this mandate until August of 2013.
The response from the Catholic hierarchy and other religious institutions has been swift and loud! As a result, last week a counter-offer was made that the mandate would still need to be included, but the religious institutions will not be charged for this coverage. The insurance companies will pay all of these claims and not be able to charge the underlying religious institutions. Evidently the reasoning is if these institutions do not actually pay for the costs of these claims, they would not be contradicting their church doctrine?
Church leaders will not accept this and will demand an outright waiver. Before flying to Rome Saturday for his elevation to cardinal, Archbishop Timothy Dolan wrote a letter to fellow bishops condemning the counter offer as a “violation of our freedom of religion”. “No government has the right to intrude into the affairs of the Church, much less coerce the Church faithful individuals to engage in or cooperate in any way with immoral practices,” wrote Dolan, who is president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. This issue is not going away.
Putting aside the religious aspects, let’s look at the economics. Who exactly is going to pay for this? Although it will be stated that insurance companies will pay, the truth is the insurance company will merely pass these claims in the form of increased premiums to all of their groups. In the end, all of these new mandates will increase the cost of health insurance.
It is no coincidence that Massachusetts has some of the highest health insurance rates in the country as well as one of the longest lists of mandated health insurance benefits in the country. This one example shows perfectly how ObamaCare will increase the cost of health insurance just like RomneyCare has done in Massachusetts since 2006.
Bill Randell is a CLU ChFC and is principal and co-founder the Worcester-based firm, Advantage Benefitshttp://www.advantagebenefits.com/.
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