Dobbs: Blue Shield Premium Hike “Is The Result Of A Death Spiral That Has Been Initiated By ObamaCare”

Lou Dobbs of the Fox Business Network stated during the January 7 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

DOBBS: In the case of rising premiums, because drugs are costing more, medical care is costing more, but what is going on in the instances in which -- we talk about Blue Shield for example in California, a 59 percent hike in premiums. That is the result of a death spiral that has been initiated by Obamacare.

These Democratic leaders knew what they were doing, President Obama knew what they were doing in launching Obamacare and moving it to law. And that is to force those who must to withdraw from the private insurance system because the premiums are simply too high, leaving the people who are sickest and obviously the heaviest consumers of medical care in the private insurance system. The insurance companies will fail and will simply vanish. [The O'Reilly Factor, 1/7/11]

Blue Shield Said Rate Increases “Have Almost Nothing To Do With The Federal Health Reform Law”

From a January 6 Bloomberg report:

Nonprofit insurer Blue Shield of California submitted a proposal to raise rates on individual policyholders by as much as 59 percent beginning March 1.

The San Francisco-based company said the increase was necessary because of rising provider fees, greater use of medical services by its members, and “the fact that healthier people are dropping coverage during a bad economy,” Johnny Wong, a company spokesman, said today in an e-mail.

[...]

About 193,000 policyholders will see higher rates that will average about 30 percent, Blue Shield's Wong said. He couldn't cite a number for those who would face the 59 percent increase. Blue Shield of California has about 3.3 million members, he said.

The increases “have almost nothing to do with the federal health reform law,” and “reflect trends that were building long before health reform,” Wong said in the e-mail. [Bloomberg, 1/6/11]