Now HERE'S a Check I Didn't Need

The saddest words of tongue or pen
Perhaps may be "It might have been."
The sweetest words, we know, by heck
Are simply these: "Enclosed: find check." 
                         -- ascribed to several sources, early 1900s.

The above poem was the solution to an acrostic I solved 50 years ago or so.  It obviously resonated, since I can still quote it.

On Monday I received one of those checks, but I could have lived happily without its implications, for sure.  It came from the Aetna Insurance Company, as a rebate of about 1% of my premiums paid to Aetna over the past year.  The rebate was a part of the Obamacare disaster law that states that insurance companies must spend 80% of their premium dollars received on medical payouts.  Any shortage in payments below 80% is to be rebated proportionally to policyholders.

Aetna's Virginia policyholders were responsible for somewhat less than 79% utilization of premium dollars, so we got back small rebates.  Yippee. I promise not to spend all $78.66 of it on candy.

Since American policyholders were so badly scrod (pardon my French) under Obamacare, I'm surprised that even this limp provision was incorporated into the law.  After all, the American people were simply not represented in the back-room deals swung with the insurance industry, the unions, etc., when the "law" was shoved through a groveling Congress.  That anything was even thought of to the benefit of the actual patient is rather startling, unless it was put there so it didn't look completely one-sided.

I think I have ripped Obamacare a few times too few, perhaps.  Our particular household situation is a salient example of how badly the "law" was assembled.  As documented here, here, here and here -- and I really want you to read these links -- our household, which had exactly zero "sick visits" to any health care provider in 2014, saw our monthly premium rise from $550 in 2014 to $1,090 in 2015.

The reason that our premiums rose as ridiculously as they did is not because we cost the medical community anything; as noted in the links, we did not.  What did happen is that the "law" forced citizens to pay, in cases such as ours, for far more coverage than we actually wanted.  Instead of the low-cost, high-deductible policy we were very happy with and which fit our situation, we were forced to buy a low-deductible policy at twice the price of our 2014 coverage.

See it this way -- we were happy with a Chevy, but the White House forced us to buy a Cadillac.  The only people who benefit in that deal are the Cadillac dealers -- i.e., the insurance companies (and, of course, the campaigns of the Democrats who got heavy donations from those insurance companies).  Aetna and its pals make out like bandits, same as would a Cadillac dealer if the White House shoved through a law mandating that everyone buy a Cadillac.

So you can tell that I happily would walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, take my $78.66 check there and tell Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. where he could "file" it, if only I didn't have to take $6,400 more out of my family's 2015 budget to give to Aetna.  I'm actually a very nice person, so in fact the president won't have to provide a recommended orifice for the check.

I would not be surprised if Aetna and its ilk will be out there with commercials telling the world how much it saved its customers, and what big rebates they gave back to policyholders.  They might be very proud of themselves, as they laugh all the way to the bank.

Me?  I just want to congratulate their lobbyists on a job well done for their clients in the insurance biz.  I know that if ever I need lobbying done, well, it's pretty clear where to go.

I just wonder how much lobbying I can get done for $78.66.  Probably can't even get a lobby swept out for that little.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
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