The insurance companies went along with ObamaCare for one reason - they were promised increased profits.
These profits would come as a result of the young people who would be forced to buy insurance (and would rarely use them - meaning a cash flow for the insurers) and also by the significant increase in the deductible. (Those who currently had insurance would rarely be able to use it because their annual medical expenses never reached the threshold.)
Exactly. But they did not understand the endgame: the destruction of the private insurance markets by the communists. They made the wrong assumption that Obama is a capitalist.
I have tried explainig this to obama cultists many times and they refuse to hear t.
“But it’s unclear how long the détente will last.”
It can’t last long. The insurers were lured into this deal by the idea of millions and millions of the young and uninsured being compelled to enlist. They had to have been underwhelmed with the “penalty” assessed for not complying. Now, as this string plays itself out, the you and uninsured are staying away and they are simply adding mountains of cost to their rolls. It’s a physically unholy unity. Some believe that the FedGov will mount a “bailout” of the insurers ala G.M. if this continues on as it is but I don’t know about that. How can Obama and the Dem Party publicly castigate the industry and then turn around and campaign to simply give them billions in aid?