“They like this bill - with mandatory purchase of insurance, weak cost control and a three-quarter trillion dollar transfer of taxpayer money to the industry - just fine.”
I work in the insurance industry. The industry does NOT want ObamaCare to pass. Where did you come up with your comment that there will be a “three-quarter trillion dollar transfer of taxpayer money to the industry”? Even assuming, arguendo, that your comment is correct, if the insurance industry must accept ALL applicants, and cannot restrict or deny pre-existing conditions, the industry will collapse within 24 months — unless it is allowed to raise rates to cover that exposure, a rate increase the government would never allow; then, the left will get its wet dream of a single-payer. Insurers cannot arbitrarily raise rates. They must apply to the government (vis-a-vis state insurance commissions) for the approval of any rate increases, and the federal bureaucracy created by ObamaCare will trump local commissions.
” Even assuming, arguendo, that your comment is correct, if the insurance industry must accept ALL applicants, and cannot restrict or deny pre-existing conditions, the industry will collapse within 24 months”
It troubles me that I haven’t heard more about this. With all the unemployment woes, have they not given any consideration to how many people work in the “hated” insurance industry?
News Flash:
Insuring only people unlikely to sick, and drooping them if they do, is no longer be a viable business model.
Hell. Anyone paying attention knew that watching industry leaders defend their eligibility, recession and pre-existing condition policies in the last congressional hearings.
I’m sure some in the industry have not yet received the memo, and some never well: it was nice work when you could get it, but that era is over.
Done with.
Finished.
And the smart boys are Jockey for their cut of Health Insurance Industry 2.0: oligarchical control of a market for managing portfolios of pre-approved basic and optional policies by 3-5 large, national organizations, with at least 2 “competitors” in each state to preserve the appearance of competition”.
Profit margin: around 6%, but without the grief.
A *very* sweet deal for the winners.
For the the industry players still trying to run Ver 1.0, not so much.