Tuesday, February 09, 2010

What Is Indicial Health Insurance Coverage?



i've been trying to make sense of this bit, discussing Obama's speech today:

Obama used the example of how Anthem Blue Cross, the largest insurer in California, is planning to raise premiums for many individual policy holders by as much as 39 percent.

"If we don't act, this is just a preview of coming attractions," the president said. "Premiums will continue to rise for folks with insurance. Millions more will lose their coverage altogether. Our deficits will continue to grow larger."

One of the reasons Anthem Blue Cross says that it's raising its premiums is because so many people are dropping out of indicial coverage because the economy's so bad, much of which has to do with businesses being uncertain about legislation in Washington.

I Googled the term and found nothing that seems to make sense. The only interpretation that would make economic sense is that "indicial" refers to group plans provided by employers. If the number of people having those has dropped then one would expect an increase in the demand for individual policies and such a demand could, indeed, raise prices. If "indicial" means something else then I'm stumped. It can't be a mis-spelling of "individual" because a drop in the demand for such policies would lower the price rather than raise it.

Though I suspect that the raising of rates by Anthem has more to do with the idea that they won't be able to raise rates after the health care proposal goes through (should it ever pass) with as much ease.