Answer: Great question, Renee, I'm sure many of our customers have been wondering the same thing. The quick answer is, yes, health insurance rates will continue to go up. Health plan premiums are a symptom, not a cause of the problem. The cause of high health insurance premiums is high health care costs. State insurance regulators have no control over that, nor over the administrative costs of the insurers. If insurance company profits are abusive, then regulators can pare back profits to a reasonable level. The problem is that insurance company profits are an almost undetectable portion of our $2.5 trillion national health expenditures. Dramatically reducing insurer profits will not even appear as a footnote in the report of our health care spending.

Unfortunately, the health insurance industry has been and will continue to be ineffective in controlling rising costs. The government must provide the solutions to rising costs, but under the reform model approved by Congress and the President, there are no effective solutions.