Mike Johanns: “Recently, the Des Moines Register reported that an Iowa- based insurance company has decided to exit the health…”

“Recently, the Des Moines Register reported that an Iowa- based insurance company has decided to exit the health insurance market, abandoning insurance sales directly to individuals and families. So what is the net effect of all of that? Thirty-five thousand policyholders will lose their insurance. It calls to mind the famous promise by the President: If you like your plan, you can keep it. The story doesn't stop there. It has an even more profound impact on the lives of real people. The impact goes on. One hundred ten employees will lose their jobs. Seventy of those employees are in Nebraska. That calls to mind Speaker Pelosi's broken promise: The law will create 4 million jobs--400,000 jobs almost immediately. The driving factor for all of this is a Health and Human Services regulation required by the health care law which micromanages how insurance companies can spend their revenues. Unfortunately, this job loss in Nebraska is not an anomaly. A recent survey of nearly 2,400 independent health insurance agents and brokers from all over came to this conclusion. One month after this HHS regulation took effect, more than 70 percent had experienced a decline in their revenues. And, more shocking, nearly 5 percent had lost their jobs. The Government Accountability Office reported that most of the insurers they interviewed were reducing individuals' commissions. These are not the big insurance companies that were railed against in the health care debate.…”