In a famous Laugh In sketch, Lily Tomlin, playing arrogant operator Ernestine, telephones a customer to demand payment of $23.64 for three calls to Topeka and threatens to send a burly serviceman to the customer's house to rip his phone out of the wall if he doesn't pay.
Ernestine was the face of smug and uncaring Bell Telephone. Today, she'd be the mug of cocky and cold-hearted health insurers.
In the 1960s skit, when the telephone customer complains about Ernestine having access to his confidential financial and tax records, she says of the telephone company:
"We are not subject to city, state or federal regulations. We are omnipotent."
Back in the days of Laugh In, the customer who Ernestine wrongly accused of owing $23.64 had no recourse. Today, however, because of Obamacare, the client could call Ernestine and demand a refund. Nearly 16 million health insurance consumers will get rebates totaling an estimated $1.3 billion beginning Aug. 1 because Obamacare limits the profits that insurance companies can make off of illness, injury and pain.
Take that, Ernestine!
This rule took effect in 2011, so insurance companies that spent too little last year on patient care must send rebates to customers this year. One New Jersey company reported it already has returned $19 million to customers.
Here is how the numbers break down, according to calculations by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization that provides facts and analysis on health care issues.
- Thirty-one percent of Americans who buy individual health insurance plans will get refunds or discounts on future bills. That's 3.4 million customers. Each will receive an average of $127. The insurance companies - 215 of them - must pay a total of $426 million.
- Nineteen percent of workers covered by large group plans will benefit. That's 7.5 million customers. They'll receive an average benefit of $72. (The money will be sent to the employers that pay the premiums and is expected to be shared with the workers who bear part of the cost.) The insurance companies - 125 of them - must pay a total of $541 million.
- Twenty-eight percent of workers covered by small group plans will benefit. That's 4.9 million customers. They'll receive an average benefit of $76. (This money also will be sent to employers.) The insurance companies - 146 of them - must pay a total of $377 million.
The Kaiser report noted that it's impossible to calculate the entire savings consumers realize as a result of the Obamacare rebate mandate because many insurers kept premiums low to avoid paying refunds. The report explains:
"This 'sentinel' effect on premiums has likely produced more savings for consumers and employers than the rebates themselves."
It wouldn't be happening without Obamacare.
For decades health insurance consumers fumed. Each year, insurance companies jacked up premiums while providing even more arrogant and brutish service. Each year, regional monopolies increased.
Consumers watched helplessly as insurers rescinded coverage from neighbors after tests determined cancer, as insurers declared spina bifida a pre-existing condition in order to deny coverage to newborns, as insured relatives went bankrupt because of co-pays and uncovered costs.
Like Ernestine, insurers snorted at unhappy customers -- because the companies knew customers had no recourse.
But then, Obamacare gave consumers just a little measure of power in their relationship with insurance companies. The law forbids insurers from dropping customers who get sick. It forbids insurers from refusing to cover children because of pre-existing conditions. And it requires insurers to spend a large percent of premiums on actual medical services instead of bloated CEO pay and profits.
This is what Republicans in Congress and in state capitals across the country are trying to take away from health insurance consumers -- that leverage Obamacare gave customers to deal with massive, faceless, bureaucratic insurance companies.
Republicans have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to declare Obamacare unconstitutional. They want to return to the days when insurers could mistreat customers like Ernestine did. They want to go back to the time when customers couldn't do a thing about it.
The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding right now whether insurers are not subject to city, state or federal regulations, whether they are, as Ernestine said, "omnipotent."
Follow Leo W. Gerard on Twitter: www.twitter.com/uswblogger
Never happened .... Insurance is not regulated at the Federal Level .. It is regulated at the State Level.
In matter of fact that is one of the bones of contention in the case before the Court
Maybe Terroh8er actually works for one of those big insurance monopolies!
THAT IS 127.00 off an average bill in the 9000 dollar range -- (about 1.25%)
The other two groups mentioned (those covered by GROUP HEALTH INSURANCE) will likely gt an even smaller percentage -- Quite often ZERO.
The money goes to the sponsor (employer) and it belongs to them not the individual. They can at THEIR OPTION pass some, all, or none to the employee.
Here is a second point .... The COST of the soon to be flamed statute has already doubled (and it is not yet fully implemented) ... The new Budget Office cost estimates indicate an increase that surpasses the savings.
Third point .... If implemented 100's of employers will drop there plan ... Far better to pay a "penalty" of 2000 than a premium of 10000 dollars.
Then what ??? How far will 127 go. A Dr. visit ???
If so, I'm betting that every used car salesman in your town already knows your name.
The vast majority of this "refund" goes to sponsors of group plans NOT individual people.
Corps have complete discretion on how they "spend" the money.
One Corporate group (Insurance) is simply passing a rebate to another Corporate group
So, "level head," you would just do nothing? Just let the insurers run a muck?
And the "Wow millions is too much to earn doing nothing" must be a stray comment from another post because it doesn't make sense here.
The GOP are all about Insurance Industry protections, patients be d@mned.
...it'd be a shame if something were to happen to it..."
Must really chaff your hide, huh?
...only an electioneering idiot would have done that... (snicker)
Do you have similar fantasies about auto insurance premiums actually going to auto repairs? Or do you understand that an auto insurance premium protects you from having to have enough assets on hand to replace someone else's car "if" you are "at fault" in an accident when you are driving?
If Romney or the SCOTUS dismantles Obama-care, our whole health care system will collapse. This artcle is another good reason to re-elect Obama. It's also a reason to elect a Congress that will actually provide a real improvement, Medicare for all.
P.s. Name one Republican Congressman who has forfeited his or her government-financed health care. The GOP is all for "socialized" medicine - as long as they get it. Socialized medicine for me, Free market for you. That's the GOP's vision of health care.
It has nothing to do with governance
So using your logic, we will see a huge bump when people are getting their enormous $127 checks? I'll remember that! then again, the government wants you to think the recession ended 3 years ago!