Letters to the editor for Saturday, July 16, 2016

With insurance rate hikes comes disappointment

The article on health insurance rates in the July 10 issue blithely observes that, “The average cost of an individual plan (of health insurance) will go up 15 percent in 2017, while the average cost of a small group plan will rise 4 percent.”

Healthy people work, sick ones don’t. Health insurance actuaries, even government health insurance actuaries, know this. The writers of Obamacare legislation included provisions to compensate individual and family coverage writers for the adverse risk selection which exists.

I am not surprised that bureaucrats administering this legislation cynically choose to ignore those provisions. This disappointment, this patently unfair disparity in premium increase, is merely the tip of a cynical and hypocritical iceberg loose in the sea of Obamacare. Not to worry if you haven’t had your share. More disappointment is to come.

Michael Goldeen

Carson City