SACRAMENTO, Calif. --- California lawmakers grilled Anthem Blue Cross executives Tuesday about their plan to boost individual insurance premiums by as much as 39 percent, only to hear them blame the economy and a broken health care system.
Democratic Assemblyman Dave Jones of Sacramento, who leads the Assembly Health Committee, didn't buy the excuses.
"Have you no shame?" he asked Anthem president Leslie Margolin at a special hearing.
Margolin said she understood the burden that rate increases place on customers and offered to work with state lawmakers on reform.
Committee members asked what the insurer had done internally to cut costs and how much its top 10 executives received in compensation last year. Anthem executives said they could not provide specific figures.
The Assembly Health Committee opened the hearing to examine the premium proposal by California's largest for-profit health insurer. The hearing was held one day before a congressional committee is scheduled to question Anthem's parent company, WellPoint Inc.
The increase is scheduled to take effect May 1 and would affect about 700,000 individual policyholders in the state.
Company executives said Anthem needs to increase premiums in part because younger, healthier people have been dropping coverage, leaving it with a pool of policyholders that is older and more dependent on health care services.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012. All Rights Reserved.
