Aetna CEO: The Un- Free Market Raises Premiums

McClatchy has a Q&A with Aeta CEO Mark Bertolini:

Q: Why are premiums going up 10 percent, 20 percent, even 30 percent or more in places such as California, where Aetna and other insurers recently agreed to delay increases while state regulators do more review?

A: We're talking there about the individual market, which is inefficient because people come in and out. What you're seeing in California is that in January they went to unisex age rating.

In the past, young males and older females had lower costs (premiums) than young females and older males, which in large part was because the females were of child-bearing age and the older males had higher chronic disease rates. What state said is you can't do that, it's discriminatory. So we said fine, we'll rate everyone the same.

As a result, young males saw a dramatic increase in health care cost and younger females saw it come down a bit and older females saw an increase.

Mandated socialism. It's expensive.