You are definitely right that the industry has shown that it can turn a profit on the margins of federal health care.
But that doesn’t explain why the industry would have climbed aboard Obamacare. And to me it seems like very small potatoes compared to the billions of dollars in regular coverage the companies offer now, and that all might be wiped out by taxpayer-funded “insurance”.
What the medicare supplement example makes me wonder is whether a free-market option for insurance will continue to exist, in which people who take care of themselves, who are willing to pay market prices, who are eager to go to self-designated physicians who only want to accept free-market payments...that is what I would like to see.
We are in the midst of a period where the larger business interests are scared shitless of the federal government.
Small business can afford to maintain principles and take issue with the federal government on an individual basis.
The individuals who run the larger businesses -- counting their top corporate officials and boardmembers -- dare not get cross-wise with the feds. Their corporations and their careers can get wiped out by one edict or decree. On purpose...or totally by accident.
As a consequence, they are prone to value judgments that will accept guaranteed crumbs from the federal table rather than openly defy this particular regime -- and risk everything.
Our federal government has grown far too powerful. And it has fallen into the hands of latent totalitarians.