What am I missing? If GOP-care takes away the individual mandate but keeps the pre-existing conditions, how can insurers possibly be on board? Won’t they lose their healthiest customers but keep all the least healthy ones? Is it because they assume there won’t be any caps on premiums, so even if they’re forced to accept pre-existing condition folks, they’ll just jack up the premiums so they can’t afford insurance anyway?
Well, now that Anthem and Kellyanne have weighed in, I feel so relieved.
High risk “pools”??
Doing this all via reconciliation, while pretty much the only option short of nuking the filibuster for legislation, has really hamstrung these bastards. Good.
@smiley Why do you think the bill includes tax cuts for insurance CEOs?
A quick calculation of how many millions Mr. Swedish’s tax refund will be under CrapCare™.
Shorter Version: Dear Congress; As a long-time advocate of screwing consumers Anthem endorses your strategy to pick healthcare winners and losers. Remember, what is good for Anthem is good for America!
Right, because we all know that insurance companies represent the gold standard of morality and righteousness.
Anthem knows the power of Blitzkrieg!
not to be too cynical but Anthem, one of the crappier insurers and FOR profit, sees a way to screw consumers and avoid insuring pre-existing conditions and high risk, meaning OLD, people…
So according to Anthem free market capitalism means they should be free to market health insurance without any requirement that their policies actually insure people who are sick and they should be able to do this without any government interference other than government subsidies of the premiums that Anthem doesn’t want to pay any taxes to cover.
Sounds like a winning economic theory.
Look, there goes Kellyanne running to Trumpy, “hey boss, Anthem likes your healthcare idea!” “I like those guys!”, says Trumpy, “tell what’s-his-name, down in that agency to approve their merger!” " I like big, strong monopolies!"
“Major Insurer Supports Republican Health Care Bill—Well, Parts Of It Anyway.”
Yes. Anthem supports the parts of it that make them Scrooge McDuck sized piles of money:
@irasdad–I read a comment on the NYT boards that called this Death Care. I thought the name quite evocative. I plan to start using it in my comments.
the temporary continuation of subsidies for insurers to keep out-of-pockets costs low for consumers;
Insurers will play this administration just like they played the Obama administration. It’s all about the continuation of subsidies. Republicans say ‘temporary subsidies’ but insurers will be able to work it to their advantage somehow - as long as they get enough customers. It will be catastrophic insurance for all with low premiums to start, followed by nickel and dime increases in premiums, deductibles, and copay’s. Once/If Republicans can pass this legislation they’ll move on to the next ‘entitlement’ while leaving the insurance carriers in charge - once again - and take us back to the days of horror with people dying because they couldn’t afford insurance or by the time they found the money to by insurance their cancer had already spread. And they’ll have little recourse as the carriers and the Republican Party will simply say ’ some may die but we have saved health insurance for millions of ‘deserving’ Americans.
And then Schumer and Pelosi will hog the cameras again and scream ‘this is so unfair, we protest.’ Republicans will shrug their shoulders and say ‘losers’. And they’ll be right IMHO.
Everyone can find parts of the bill that they like. I, for instance, like the part that says that preexisting conditions must be covered.
That doesn’t make the bill a good one.
I don’t understand it either. I know Krugman has stated that if this plan were to pass, a death spiral for insurance is all but certain. It is not impossible, were this to happen and with the huge backlash against Trumpcare and Trumpism in general that would subsequently follow, that this would pave the way to single payer. Such sweet justice it would be.
Lemme guess. It’s insurers being able to charge people 55-65 years old 5-7 times the amount they charge millennials, right?
Quid. Pro. Quo.
What you are missing is that Athem is awaiting government approval to purchase Cigna.