http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/othercities/sacramento/stories/2008/09/01/daily43.html reports that insurance rates are dropping over 18% (if approved)...but the rates that are dropping are the insurance rates for doctors buying malpractice insurance.
Doctors Co., sellers of physician malpractice insurance, in California has applied for this rate decrease.
While the specifics are always described in terms of "financial" adjustments, the article does give a piece of information about the merger between Doctors Co. and another malpractice insurer. This power of a group, whether companies or individuals is a pet peeve for me.
The most successful thing that health insurers have done in terms of strangle holding consumers into inadequate coverage is the old idea of divide and conquer.
Consumers are turning on one another, each person not wanting to hinge their insurance rates to someone older, sicker, or with a chronic illness. These short sighted approaches are called such because they are only as good as your latest benefits year and your latest doctor appointment. One event will catapult you into a new world where you are the drain on the system. And if you make it through the physical health standard of a benefits year, your rates have still steadily increased from the high single digits to the low double digits year after year after year.
Whether you support universal health care, whether you are a fan of the old model HMO (and there are HUGE issues with those), the power of a group is always better than the leverage of a single individual.
If there is one thing to learn from the physicians who will begin lowering their malpractice insurance rates by nearly 20%, it is that the divide and conquer approach has proven true and consumers have been conquered.
As a tongue and cheek aside, it will be interesting to see whether these savings are passed onto consumers.
