Insurers brace for overhaul changes

The Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail: The health overhaul seeks to insure millions of Americans who do not currently have coverage with new subsidies, in essence, delivering millions of new customers to insurers. But, the bill would also guarantee people won't be excluded from coverage because of sickness, a potentially costly proposition for insurance firms who continue to complain that too few Americans will become insured and the risk won't be spread thinly enough to offset coverage of the sickest people. "Insurance officials are concerned the penalties won't be high enough to cause everyone to buy insurance" (Rivard, 3/29).

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Yet, "[h]aving spent more than a year opposing various components of President Barack Obama's health care reform plan, insurers must now prepare for the reality of a new business landscape — new rules, new pricing models, new taxes and new customers. ... Barring a congressional repeal or a judicial Hail Mary, the health care reform bill will begin taking effect in stages over the coming years. Insurers will spend the coming months getting a handle on what, precisely, the new law means to their existing business paradigm" (Toland, 3/30).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.