http://kff.org/report-section/medicaid-spending-growth-compared-to-other-payers-issue-brief/ Medicaid http://kff.org/report-section/medicaid-spending-growth-compared-to-other-payers-issue-brief/ Medicare: The biggest advantage of a single payer system is that it will help control costs. Putting all the sick people on the government risk pool will just cause that pools cost to skyrocket. The government will have a poll of really sick people. Why would hospitals want to work with that?
Health insurance is really a field where I've envied the governmental strength over in Europe. Not from a single-payer model perspective, but from the idea that the EU sets rules and companies have to abide by them or not do business there. EU's butted heads Microsoft and Google over tons of consumer friendly issues. Healthcare should not be such a pro-business/lobby enterprise.
You have yet to explain to me why the insurance companies are leaving this lucrative exchange when they are making 10's of billions in profits.
Actually I have answered this, as have others. Your point is both vague and irrelevant. But to answer it again, insurance companies want to avoid the exchanges so they can work work with more profitable segments. And Aetna appears to have also made their decision to spite the government for blocking their merger. You haven't answered a list of questions so far... Question: Do you work in the insurance industry? Question: Why do you propose moving the coverage of millions of people with pre-existing conditions into a Medicare system that the republican party calls unsustainable, and is trying to cut spending and reduce the number of people receiving it? Question: why do you believe insurance companies are on the verge of bankruptcy due to covering people with pre-existing conditions when the industry had net profits of just under $500 billion in 2015 and Aetna had net margin growth of 19%?
You could have just said that the reason Aetna is leaving the marketplace is due to 430 million dollars worth of losses on Obamacare plans in just 2 years.....and the losses were expected to get worse. Then again that undercuts the notion that Obamacare is making insurance companies rich.
"It's not often in the midst of an antitrust fight that the public gets a look at the gamesmanship that's happening behind the scenes. But thanks to the Huffington Post's Jonathan Cohn and Jeff Young, we got a glimpse at how health insurer Aetna is making its case to acquire rival Humana — and new insight into Aetna's decision announced Tuesday to pull out of Obamcare exchanges in 11 states." http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/08/17/490202346/aetna-ceo-to-justice-department-block-our-deal-and-well-drop-out-of-exchanges
The 430 million in losses is a fact, now did the blocking of an aquisition aid in them deciding not to take those losses anymore? Sure....but you realize this isn't a rebuttal to what I said right? It's like I'm talking to children.
^^^ and not be be unfair to Aetna (alone), they are one four of the insurance firms that announced plans to reduce or pull out of the exchanges. Sure its only a coincidence.
No one is suggesting that it's a coincidence, they are suggesting that it is because they are losing money on Obamacare plans so they don't want to offer them anymore.
Actually, $430 million in losses is not a fact... what is a fact is Aetna claimed it lost $430 million since 2014, and claimed it lost $140 million last year. As an aside, they must be really killing it in other insurance markets to have 19% net profit growth last year. And thanks to the Aetna CEO's letter, we also know its a fact he threatened to pull out if the government blocked the sale (as the letter was sent while the government was still considering the decision). Which also sounds like blackmail... but I reckon that's another topic. It also reverses theAetna position from just a few months earlier, when that same CEO said: http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/01/news/economy/aetna-obamacare/ Interesting that the folks at Aetna were suggesting possible fixes...
Why does this matter? No I do not. I dont care who is saying what or trying to do what. The bottom line is quality health care can not be given through a for-profit system. I define quality as availability of health care, cost, and the quality of actual service rendered. Yes, taxes will need to go up to offset this. I am fine with that provided its going to health care. I am not interested in blaming Republicans or Democrats for anything. Im telling you, bottom line, for-profit healthcare will not work. I have answered this several times. Insurance companies have multiple markets. Vision, dental, ect.. in which I am sure they are all doing fine. They can be making hundreds of millions in one and losing hundreds of millions in other. Its unsustainable if one side of the house is losing money. This whole revenge tactic you alledge makes absolutely not sense. Why are the other providers pulling out, not just Aetna? Do you really think insurance companies are all working together to sink Obamacare? That is a huge anti-trust violation. I am the one supporting a Democrat ideology of socializing healthcare. You are the one supporting a Republican free market idea.
I asked that because (1) in the past I believe you posted information about insurance companies would soon be doing that was not public information. And why that is important is that it would explain your bias and fervent defense of insurance company profits. It would be like me working for Comcast and arguing against Net Neutrality... Well, actually, it does seem you care. Though I can understand why you don't like me posting articles, quotes, and other information to support my argument. Perhaps you should do so as well, since it would help support your argument. Instead, you basically post opinions and you don't give us any reason why your opinion is valid. I think we all want quality health care. And want it available, affordable, and of high quality. Prior to ACA that did not exist for my daughter (and me and the rest of my family) and millions of other Americans with pre-existing conditions. As well as millions others. Again, all of us want quality health care. We are all in agreement that insurance companies carry multiple lines of insurance, some are more profitable, some less. Some carry low risks, some high. Where we disagree is whether improvements in ACA are possible. Even the Aetna CEO suggested possible fixes that seem reasonable. I posted articles with lists of others. I posted the exact wording of the Aetna CEO letter. And four of the leading insurance companies were all trying to influence the government to allow mergers. btw, your last sentence only illustrates your misdirected attempts to make this a partisan debate. Democrats and Republicans need to work together to address this. And its rare when I get the opportunity to introduce the beliefs of republicans in a discussion, but it is the republican party that says Medicare is not sustainable... so your plan to move millions with pre-existing conditions into Medicare is just not going to work. Or, if you truly believe a "for profit system" can't work, and the only solution is "socializing healthcare", then you are arguing for a single-payer system for everyone and not just for people with pre-existing conditions.
I completely disagree with the idea that having a money losing side of the business is unsustainable. If the insurance companies can continue making profits despite a money losing venture then chalk that up as the cost of doing business. They're no longer entitled to cherry-pick the healthiest patients. Make it an all or nothing proposition for the insurance companies.
Most companies won't choose to keep a money losing side of the business if there's no reason to. When you could just cut that part of the business and make more money, you do that. Short term losing money on part of a business isn't bad, but if something is never going to make any money and only hemorrhage money like Obamacare policies, it would be foolish to keep doing it.
Not true, here's a calculator to figure what the penalty would be http://obamacarefee.com/2016-calculator/
I understand the business aspect of it. If I were a business I'd undoubtably do the same. But if Congress come up with a way to mandate covering the exchanges in return for continuing to be allowed to cover the more profitable patients, I guarantee there would be a much more effortful attempt to make the exchanges profitable. Right now, they just not even trying because they're hoping if they show a few years of losses the whole idea will just go away. The idea does not need to go away.
Well it was set up to not be profitable so that when it inevitably failed, they could go back and say "See, this is why we need single payer"....and that's just what people are doing now. The setup they have now will never be profitable, when you can't factor in pre-existing conditions and someone can essentially sign a policy AFTER something bad happens and still get covered it's a model that won't ever work in the private sector. Those kinds of rules have "government money pit" written all over it. I'm not fully against a government healthcare system for the poor honestly, so long as they cut back on entitlements enough to pay for it. I'm against adding another massive entitlement program to the books when 60% of all government spending already goes into entitlements.
Never is a strong word. I agree ACA isn't tenable in its current iteration but some variant of the concept might be. There's probably still a decent population of young(er), healthy(ier) people who could give greater balance to the exchanges. People will have to accept that it's second class insurance that doesn't provide all the same doctor/hospital options. I have insurance through the county hospital I work at and while it's ridiculously cheap, I can only seek medical care at the hospital, its affiliate clinics and the private clinics run by the affiliated med school.
