Touted Obama mandate to kick in this year finds health insurers backing out

• 7/23, "Some insurers stop writing new coverage for kids," AP
  

"Some major health insurance companies will no longer issue certain types of policies for children, an unintended consequence of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law, state officials said Friday....

• Starting later this year, the health care overhaul law requires insurers to accept children regardless of medical problems --
  

• a major early benefit of the complex legislation.
  

Insurers are worried that parents will wait until kids get sick to sign them up, saddling the companies with unpredictable costs....

• Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said several big insurers in his state will stop issuing new policies that cover children individually. Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland said a couple of local insurers in her state are doing likewise.

In Florida, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Aetna, and Golden Rule -- a subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare -- notified the insurance commissioner that they will stop issuing individual policies for children....

• Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida...vice president Randy Kammer said the company's experts calculated that guaranteeing coverage for children could
  
• raise premiums for other individual policy holders by as much as 20 percent.

"We believe that the majority of people who would buy this policy were going to use it immediately, probably for high cost claims," said Kammer. "Guaranteed issue means you could technically buy it on the way to the hospital.""