If you guessed Illinois you win a 60% rate increase on individual health insurance policies! What a deal, eh? Congrats California, you’re no longer the state being screwed over the most by the health insurance industry!

Consumers in Illinois who lose their jobs and have no other option but to buy their own health insurance will get socked this year with premium increases of up to 60 percent, according to state records. […]

The individual insurance market is relatively small compared with consumers who get their insurance through their employers, but it has become the fastest-growing group in this economy, in which about one in 10 are unemployed. The individual market also has spawned a national debate after a California health insurer raised premiums for this group by up to 40 percent, triggering probes by state regulators and the Obama administration.

These people really have no shame, do they. They are so convinced the health care reform will not pass that they just don’t care what outrageous crap they pull, and they don’t care that we know about it. And all the Teabaggers who are afraid that the public option, which would force the insurance industry to actually compete for your health care business, is socialism incarnate are — and I apologize to any family members in advance who believe this to be true — ignoramuses.

Because it isn’t just individuals that are getting hit with outrageous health insurance rate increases. Small businesses are as well:

The HHS examples did not include increases occurring in Washington. One District resident recently received a letter from CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield saying the premiums for his family’s high-deductible plan are going up from $506 per month to $714 per month, a 41 percent increase. He said the company told him that the increase did not have to do with his family’s use of medical care, but that it had decided a whole block of its policies was underpriced.

Stephanie Cohen, an insurance broker with the District firm of Golden and Cohen, said she is seeing many similar rate increases, including some that are even larger for small-business policies. She said the increases had been approved by regulators in the District and surrounding states. Insurance regulators in the District and Maryland were not able to provide details about the rate increases on Thursday.

What’s driving these rate hikes? Not out of control health care costs. Just simple greed:

From 2000 to 2008, insurance premiums went up 97% for families and 90% for individuals. In the same time period, payments to providers like hospitals and doctors only went up 72%. Even worse, underlying medical inflation, calculated from the Consumer Price Index, went up only 39%.

In short, over the last eight years premiums almost doubled, but medical inflation went up only 40%. Premiums rose two times faster, and over three times faster than wages, which only rose 29% in the same time period.

But God forbid we reform our current health care mess. By the way, our family plan requires a $2400 deductible before we only have to pay lower rates for our health care costs. Sometime this month we will pass that number. But we have a family with many medical problems. Imagine paying thousands of dollars each month and never reaching your deductible limit. Would you call the premiums those people pay robbery?

I would, and do.