A constellation of insurance regulators and executives were on hand at the
After a closed-door meeting, President Obama spoke in the East Room. He noted that the event also coincided with the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury issuing new regulations that would end “some of the worst practices” in the insurance industry, including rescissions, lifetime care limits and discrimination against patients with preexisting conditions.
Despite the tough rhetoric, Obama said the new rules were not punitive. “As I said when I met with the insurance executives, it’s not meant to punish insurance companies,” Obama said. “They provide a critical service. They employ large numbers of Americans. And in fact, once this reform is fully implemented a few years from now, America’s private insurance companies have the opportunity to prosper from the opportunity to compete for tens of millions of new customers. We want them to take advantage of that competition.”
Obama also said the government would keep an eye on premium increases, citing an attempt by Indianapolis-based Anthem Blue Cross to raise premiums. “Earlier this year, for example, more than 800,000 Anthem Blue Cross customers in California opened their mail to see that their premiums would go up by as much as 39%,” Obama said. “My administration wanted to know why. And when pressed, they took a look at it and said, well, our math was wrong; we didn’t justify that kind of rate increase. So they withdrew it.”
Still, Obama acknowledged that there are genuine cost-drivers that are not caused by health insurers. “None of this is designed to deprive insurance companies of fair rates,” he said. “And as I mentioned when we were meeting with the CEOs, there are a lot of cost-drivers other than those that are within insurance companies’ control. But it is important to have these steps in places to protect consumers from unjustifiable rate increases.”
