November 3, 2013

"How long do big insurance companies continue to work w/Obama WH to improve #Obamacare while WH blames them for its problems?"

28 comments:

Greg Hlatky said...

Depends on the caliber of the gun being held to their heads.

pm317 said...

They need each other at least right now. They need big numbers of enrollment to cash in on this heist.

Mark O said...

Not the gun; the money.

rhhardin said...

Obama wants a larger cut of the money.

Rick said...

The insurance companies are captives of their state, and now federal, regulators. They will act accordingly.

Shouting Thomas said...

The kulaks and wreckers cannot be allowed to subvert the brilliant Five Year Plan!

Pathetic, isn't it?

The con artists caught in their con. It was all about graft.

This shit always happens with the Diversity hire. I oughta know. I suffered through it three times in my working career.

Hagar said...

Ask the big railroads how getting in bed with the Feds worked out for them.

rehajm said...

If the individual mandate delay happens, since the insurers need the premiums or their business model crashes, then it's only a matter of months. Otherwise the insurers could suck along until the employer mandate kicks in, when employers either pay the fine and give the cash difference to their full timers and let them fend for themselves, where many will choose not to sign up until they get sick, or when employers just cut back enough workers to part timers who choose to pay the fines until they get sick.

Interestingly employers and employees have sufficient financial incentive to pay the fines and for employers to pay to self insure employees who choose to forego insurance for events like broken limbs and heart attacks. The incentives are all there, and we're all in trouble.

Hagar said...

They have no choice. You won't hear a peep, except from some of the smaller ones as they go broke anyway and no longer give a shit.

Michael K said...

When they figure out that this a big financial loser for them, they will quit.

rehajm said...

The big follow up question: Who gets the first bailout- insurers or providers?

Cedarford said...

Both the Obamites and insurers are in cahoots. The insurance companies, remember, got the right to dump millions from their rolls....as well as stick it to people who don't like lousier insurance and losing the caregivers they went to with giant rate hikes in the 40-58% range. Individual health account holders, the self-employed and small business people... and those about to be dumped from employee plans face giant rate hikes that may force them off insurance or from local caregivers in the suburbs to a small cabal of Obama Administration caregivers located in a distant city.

The website delays are just the beginning of the huge fucking a good chunk of the population is facing with limited caregivers, freezes in new jobs until the mess is sorted through, crippling insurance costs.

Bob R said...

There hasn't been anything like a free market in health insurance since WWII. Insurance companies depend on the government to limit competition. I'm sure they are really sad to see low margin, inexpensive plans made illegal.

Anonymous said...

As long as they get stimulus, subsidies, and bail-outs.

Diogenes of Sinope said...

Fascist economics: "Strict regulation and control of the economy by the regime through some form of corporatist economic planning in which the legal forms of private ownership of industry are nominally preserved but in which both workers and capitalists are obliged to submit their plans and objectives to the most detailed state regulation and extensive wage and price controls, which are designed to insure the priority of the political leadership's objectives over the private economic interests of the citizenry. Therefore under fascism most of the more important markets are allowed to operate only in a non-competitive, cartelized, and governmentally "rigged" fashion"
Dr. Paul M. Johnson
Department of Political Science
Auburn University

jr565 said...

The dark secret is that much of Wall Street actually backed Obama. Despite all the talk of rich fat cats and discussions of how they weren't being taxes enough. That seems to be Obama's go to policy. Demagogue your enemies.
And yet many of his enemies bend over and ask for more demagoguery.

The Godfather said...

Suckas! They won't/can't do sh*t.

wildswan said...

I never thought of Blue Cross Blue Shield as selling plans that were scams. But that company is putting people off its low cost plans and the Mouth of the White House is saying that all low cost plans were "scams." Really? I think some of these statements being flung around are actual libels.

David said...

A very long time. They know who controls their cash flow.

Dad29 said...

David has it.

"Follow the money" is the very best advice on all such questions.

Carl said...

"Improve" in what sense? The thing is rotten at its core. Mixing a tablespoon of ice cream into a quart of dog shit doesn't improve its flavor. Even a gallon wouldn't.

pm317 said...

Well, you can't keep your doctor either This is going be one clusterfuck of a day for O and his minions when this story spreads around.

30yearProf said...

Greed and stupidity can drive a business for a long time. Consider the Airlines.

30yearProf said...

Greed and stupidity can drive a business for a long time. Consider the Airlines.

tim maguire said...

Obama talks a good game, but we all know he is a crony capitalist. Ignore the blame game, insurance companies will stop working with Obama when he stops making them rich.

Tarrou said...

For as long as they stand to make trillions from having government force everyone to buy their product. I still remember that the insurance industry groups were lobbying hard for the ACA. They stand to make all the money, ever. The president can call them names all day, as long as they get paid.

Strelnikov said...

Answer: Forever. The graft from crony capitalism, of which ObamaCare is as pure an example as exists outside the "Green Energy" sector, is far too great. They'll take anything to stay on the gravy train.

paul a'barge said...

For an eternity, Mr Hayes. For an eternity.

Did you just fall off a banana boat in America? Welcome to Big Pharma, Business, etc, etc