Now it's personal

Obamacare strikes close to home. We have health insurance with Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Connecticut, and I woke up this morning to this news.

The state has given Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield the go ahead to raise premiums by as much as 47 percent for some members, and says health care reform is the reason why.

"The rates that were filed and approved reflect the current cost to deliver care and the impact of more comprehensive benefit designs required under the federal healthcare reform law," Insurance Commissioner Thomas Sullivan said, responding to the attorney general. "If the attorney general wants to complain to someone, he should complain to Congress."

And we're learning that long-term care insurance is going up as well.

People with long-term-care insurance polices are getting hit with a new round of steep premium increases. Last month, industry behemoth John Hancock Financial said it would ask state regulators for an average 40% increase for about 850,000 of its 1.1 million policyholders. 

In recent months, companies including American International Group Inc., MetLife Inc. and Lincoln National Corp. have applied for or received approval in one or more states for rate rises ranging from 10% to 40%.

All of this makes U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn's words about these rate hikes sound less like campaign alarmism and more like fact.

"There will be no insurance industry left in three years. That is by design. You’re going to make insurance unaffordable for everyone -- which is what they want. Because if there’s no private insurance left, what’s left? Government-centered, government-run, single-payer health care.”

Ouch.