Although it is the hope of the government that health care reform will ultimately reduce rates and make health care affordable and available to all, there is no way to be certain that this will be the result. Health care reform will cause many changes in the way insurance companies set their rates and there are a number of factors that may actually cause rate increases. The insurance companies will be carefully assessing these factors when providing health insurance quotes.

In the short term, the insurance companies will be balancing a number of factors when taking into consideration whether there will be rate increases. One of the things that may cause an increase in rates is the fact that health care reforms will not allow an insurance company to deny coverage to, or rescind the policy of, an individual with a high risk or pre-existing condition. In addition, insurance companies will be prohibited from limiting annual limits and lifetime limits, as well as rescinding a policy for filing a claim. Prior to the health care reforms, insurance companies could eliminate or reduce this risk. However, insurance companies may now pass these costs on to all their customers by way of rate increases to balance out the effects of the new restrictions.

On the other hand, there a number of factors that may act to offset the increased risk to the insurance companies. One of these factors will be the modernization of medical records reducing time and paperwork. Another factor will be the influx of new customers. The fact that more people will have access to and be able to afford coverage should have the effect of increasing the volume and therefore the income of insurance companies. In addition, because all of the insurance companies will be vying for these new customers, they will have to remain competitive when providing health care insurance quotes.

However, perhaps the biggest factor to be considered in the mix is the affect of the private sector versus the public sector health care. The requirement that quality health care be available to all may cause cost-shifting due to increase in demand for health care services. This overall rise in health care costs would then be passed on to the consumers resulting in rate increases.

The health care reforms will not be fully implemented until 2014. From now until then, the insurance companies will be basing their health insurance quotes upon the information they have available at the time as well as forecasts of the long term effects. The long term effects of the health care reform remain an unknown at this time and may have the result of rate increases in health care costs.