The requests followed a mandatory 15-percent rollback of insurance premiums imposed by legislators and Gov. Christie Whitman in 1999.
The growing burden for corporate America is in non-wage items -particularly big jumps in health insurance premiums, imposed by the insurers, and higher Social Security taxes, imposed by the Government.
"They looked for other ways to limit costs of their state high risk pool programs -- surcharging premiums, imposing high deductibles and low lifetime limits, and most of all, excluding people based on their pre-existing conditions," Pollitz said.
Of the 28 states that originally resisted, almost all of which were in the Deep South or under control of conservative Republican governors or legislatures, eight eventually came around, including six that have been permitted to tweak Medicaid standards by charging small premiums, imposing co-pays or limiting or eliminating some benefits.
The top premium this year, imposed on singles with income of $213,000 or more, and couples with $426,000 and up, is $308.30 per person each month.
For self-employed, the premium is imposed by a formula based on gender, income and property to reflect actual income.
The higher premiums will impose "an additional and significant burden" on states, which help pay Medicaid costs, along with the federal government.
Many insurers denied coverage arbitrarily, and when they did accept applicants, they imposed outlandish premiums.
Due to the high priority of premium traffic, the global network behaviour against this service class, including routing and scheduling of premium packets, may impose significant influences on traffic of other classes.
"They can protect consumers from narrowing networks and premium increases and impose a wide variety of other conditions". Consumer advocates say they fear that existing problems over affordability and access to care will get worse as insurers consolidate market power.
