The Colorado Division of Insurance has published the Effect of New Federal Requirements on Colorado Health Insurance Premiums. Some notes:

1.  The chart says that for small-group markets, the “Elimination of Pre‐Existing Conditions for Enrollees under Age 19″ does not at all increase premiums.  This is misleading. As Brad Jones at Face the State reported last week:

“The individual market has taken a harder hit” regarding premium hikes, [Colo. Division of Insurance spokeswoman Jo] Donlin said. That’s because some changes mandated under the federal Act, such as requiring coverage for pre-existing conditions for those under 19, were already mandated by the state for small-group policies. “Some of the group policies – these didn’t have as big an effect because [the mandates] were already in place.”

Read the whole article: What price Obamacare? Perhaps the true toll has yet to be tallied.

2.  Removal of annual and lifetime limits.  If your plan has no lifetime or annual limit, then the mandate does nothing.  Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute notes that

Even HHS estimates that the requirement that consumers purchase unlimited annual coverage could increase premiums for some by 7 percent.

3.  “Prohibit Rescission.”  John Graham of the Pacific Research Institute notes:

In the final version of Obama’s health care legislation, H.R. 3590, section 2712 states an insurer “shall not rescind such plan or coverage with respect to an enrollee once an enrollee is covered under such plan or coverage involved, except that this section shall not apply to a covered individual who has performed an act or practice that constitutes fraud or makes an intentional misrepresentation of material fact as prohibited by the terms of the plan or coverage.”

Unless I’m missing something, this is the biggest scam of so-called health care “reform” because, as Graham has noted, federal regulations has made such rescission illegal since 1997.  Graham also notes that

Such behavior is already illegal under state laws.

In my state of California, the law is found in both the Insurance Code § 10384 through 10384.17, and the Health & Safety Code § 1389.3.

… the relevant provisions for [Illinois and Iowa] are in the Illinois Administrative Code Title 50 § 2005.40(d) through (f) and the Merged Iowa Code and Supplement Title XIII § 514A.3.1.b, respectively.

See also Mainstream Parrots with Trumpets at JonCaldara.com.