Posted on 11/18/2014 4:55:37 AM PST by tired&retired
WASHINGTON — As Americans shop in the health insurance marketplace for a second year, President Obama is depending more than ever on the insurance companies that five years ago he accused of padding profits and canceling coverage for the sick.
Those same insurers have long viewed government as an unreliable business partner that imposed taxes, fees and countless regulations and had the power to cut payment rates and cap profit margins.
But since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, the relationship between the Obama administration and insurers has evolved into a powerful, mutually beneficial partnership that has been a boon to the nation’s largest private health plans and led to a profitable surge in their Medicaid enrollment.
The insurers in turn have provided crucial support to Mr. Obama in court battles over the health care law, including a case now before the Supreme Court challenging the federal subsidies paid to insurance companies on behalf of low- and moderate-income consumers. Last fall, a unit of one of the nation’s largest insurers, UnitedHealth Group, helped the administration repair the HealthCare.gov website after it crashed in the opening days of enrollment.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
These companies have become agencies of the government, who forced millions of people into their “stores”; why would they not be allies?
Exactly. That’s what the article goes on to explain.
Oh Yeah, please cut your premiums for now, then after the election...
Also; the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the Original Legislative Fraud that also needs more investigative reporting.
The Dems aren’t socialists; they are corporatists. They would prefer to organize society into a small number of hierarchical interest groups: labor, industry, government, racial identity groups, etc. Then the elite leaders of these groups can bargain on behalf of their subjects. At least, that’s how corporatism works in theory.
Surprise, surprise. Obama and Democrats are in bed with the crony capitalist health insurance companies.
Yes, at our expense.
Like two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Their is another name for what you describe very well, Fascism.
Only the willfully blind and completely stupid, actually believe that only Republicans are trying to help big-business!
In every Presidential election year, for the last 20 years, the Democrats have pulled more donations from Wall Street than Republicans! So, tell me who is for big business?!?!
As for the Obamacare crap, the Democrats FORCED Americans to purchase their products - OF COURSE the insurance companies are going to do everything they can to keep that gravy train running! If government forced everyone to buy buggy whips, we would all still be buying them (probably would have upped our annual quotas) and those manufacturers would STILL BE PUMPING D.C. with money and whores!!!
Great posts. Fascism…er crony socialism. What is insurance? The socialization of risk. The tangled web of totalitarians, totalitariancare (force, fraud).
Yep!
Government decides who gets to own and build what and how much is offered to the public, the companies take all the risk/blame/problems and Government gets the profits!
THAT would be a liberals wet-dream!
thats it exactly. Corporatism goes by different names; Crony Capitalism, Third Position Economics, Fascism.
At the root, it all amounts to command economics where the government calls the shots by the means of production and delivery remain in “private” hands.
With “private” being defined as large corporations that, of course, given the way consumers are force driven into buying their products and services, will love to work hand in hand implementing the governments directives!
The article stresses the windfalls insurers are getting through government transfers (subsidies, Medicaid, Medicare). The private market has not grown that much.
They may sing a different tune if the court cases put the kibosh on the subsidies and the states cut back on the Medicaid expansion in a few years when it starts to bust their budgets.
As Melissa Francis said (and got reprimanded at CNBC), the numbers don’t add up. You can’t add millions of unpaying customers to insurance rolls and expect that costs will go down and access will be improved.
Just like anyone who tries to run a deli or a tavern in the city of Chicago can attest...
“that’s how corporatism works in theory.”
I think that’s how Nazism works in theory: the government controls all the corporations and thus controls all the people.
I’ve been in insurance for 17 years.
Saying insurers are friends of Obamacare is like saying bees are friendly to bears; there is a relationship based upon a commodity, but one entity continually gets the sh!tty end of the stick.
Obama has gutted the insurance industry.
The goals is the end of employer funded health insurance. Corporate America desperately wants out from under that yoke. But first they had to make sure the insurance companies would still have customers by forcing us to buy their product after our employers stop providing it. And here we are.
United Healthcare is making a fortune off Obamacare.
Do any NYT readers ask themselves where this "mutual profit" is coming from. The victims of Obamacare know - it's coming from the insurance premiums of ordinary middle-class Americans who now have to subsidize the hobbies of women like Sandra Fluke, the mental illness of people who are confused on their gender, and other unnecessary expenses.
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