Posted on 10/28/2012 9:36:10 AM PDT by pabianice
You'd think health insurance CEOs would be chilling the bubbly with Republican Mitt Romney's improved election prospects, but instead they're in a quandary.
Although the industry hates parts of President Barack Obama's health care law, major outfits such as UnitedHealth Group and BlueCross Blue Shield also stand to rake in billions of dollars from new customers who'll get health insurance under the law. The companies already have invested tens of millions to carry it out.
Were Romney elected, insurers would be in for months of uncertainty as his administration gets used to Washington and tries to make good on his promise repeal Obama's law. Simultaneously, federal and state bureaucrats and the health care industry would face a rush of legal deadlines for putting into place the major pieces of what Republicans deride as "Obamacare."
Would they follow the law on the books or the one in the works? What would federal courts tell them to do?
The answers probably would hinge on an always unwieldy Congress.
Things could get grim for the industry if Republicans succeed in repealing the Affordable Care Act's subsidies and mandates, but leave standing its requirement that insurers cover people with health problems. If that's the outcome, the industry fears people literally could get health insurance on the way to the emergency room, and that would drive up premiums.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Why all the sudden interest from the left in what’s good for insurance companies? They didn’t care about that 2 years ago....
Even though I don’t consider Romney nearly as conservative as I’d like, I hope he wins if only because watching liberals go back on their meds, flailing around like adolescents having a brat attack, is incredibly satisfying. It’s a “so sweet, your tears” thing.
Obamacare has no restrictions on how much profit the insurers can make. Only thing it stipulates is minimum percentage of revenue to be spent on actual care. So they can double the premiums and double the overhead.
Obamacare is definitely a bonanza for the big health insurers.
The kids in the state run “media” must be going through some tremendous amounts of weed, meth, bath salts and cocaine during this campaign season.
Some advice to mutual fund holders....if you invested big into medical-related funds, and Mitt wins...you might want to move your fund choice over to something else real quick. If the House and the Senate can find the votes to remove the health care plan....their future revenue plans are screwed and the mutual funds will drop by ten percent as a minimum.
Don’t forget that cronyism can only exist where there are willing parties on both sides of the transaction. With trillions of dollars at stake, you can bet insurance companies worked their crony-connections. But if Romney wins, at the very least his administration will have different crony issues and many of the existing relationships will be be trashed.
Let us hope that cronies of every stripe and suckage are scared of life under Romney. But I am under no illusions. Government attracts cronies and cronyism. That is yet one more reason why government must be downsized as much as possible. We cannot afford the cronies we have accumulated.
This Obamacare confuses me. I thought when passed, all the insurance agencies would fade out since it was cheaper for individuals and companies to get insurance from the govt., er, taxpayer.
there is some truth in the idea that some big nationwide insurance outfits DID in fact help promote Obamacare
remember, Obama once said he was against a mandate to buy insurance, when he campaign in the 2008 primaries against Hillary, who was unapoligetically for them at the time
but that was before the Dims could not get the major insurance companies to join them promoting the legislation UNLESS buying insurance was MANDATORY beccause, from the big insurers perspective revenue would remain as it is, the healthy would not come in on their own and the insurers would not be able to offer the kinds of policies MANDATED by the rest of the legislation - UNLESS buying insurance was mandatory
the insurers were correct that all the other parts of Obamacare would not be sustainable in private insurance plans in the long run, unless buying insurance was a government tyranny enforced by law
the could have promoted opposition to the legislation on more principled free enterprise grounds, that nearly all government mandates about what kind of insurance MUST be provided NEVER reduce the cost of inurance
mandates of all kinds in insurance are a market signal that there is little to compete about in mandated coverages, because everyone has to have them and pay for them whether they like them or not
the history of state mandates against employers about what items MUST BE part of a health insurance plan, over the last 20-30 years, IS part of, and part cause of the history of the ever increasing health insurance premiums over the same period,
and having helped create that trend the Marxists/Progressives/Liberals/Democrats then squealed that something had to be done about and the solution they continued to promote was more of the same
this was no accident
Liberals are the Marxists useful idiots, and contrary to some of their “good intentions” the Marxists who stood behind the scenes within the staffs of the legislators KNEW that damaging the private insurance markets was the necessary step in demanding they not be private.
Conservatives have to get it out of their heads that every corporation, every business enterprise in the United States either believes in, promotes or is willing to defend free enterprise, and quite factually, the larger the enterprise the more likely it is that they are willing to become mercantilist ourfits, willing to be part of doing “the king’s” [Washington D.C.] bidding as long as the king promises to keep them whole.
Among all the legislation that the Pelosi-Obama agenda passed in 2009 - from Obamcare and Dodd-Frank to everything else, nearly all of it was more favorable to the biggest corporations, in any industry, at the expense of their medium and small peers.
I am not crying for the big insurers who might again have to shift their financial gears as Obamacare is undone.
But Conservatives would be making a big mistake if they again trusted the giant insurers to be on our side. They were not and they won’t be.
The only insurers running scared are AARP and their ilk who sell medicare supplements for this monstrosity!!
I’m sure we just misunderstood them. barf
Obamacare is a massive sh*tburger that the health care companies helped cook up. So excuse a small grin from crossing my face over the prospect of them having to take a bite.
Insurance companies sold out, completely, to Obama and the Dems in return for the Individual Mandate.
The Individual Mandate, since the Supreme Court has now ruled it a tax, can be dropped almost immediately if there’s a GOP House, Senate and President, under the “reconciliation” process. The other parts, like having to cover preexisting conditions, insure 26 year olds on their parents’ plans, etc — expensive parts — might take longer to get rid of.
And I’m not really all that adverse to a Republican-dominated government dropping the Individual Mandate and some of the other expensive provisions while letting the stuff that really soaks the insurance companies linger for a while. They were given a choice, and chose ... poorly.
Yes, some of them, who were instrumental in pushing through this law, will be nervous. Overall it damages the insurance industry, but the larger ones essentially have their current dominance codified as a monopoloy by Obamacare. This is one of the most corporatist bills ever passed.
I agree on that. However there could be a general rally in the market if Mitt wins and that may reduce the drop in healthcare insurance stocks.
Do you know of anything that government runs is cheaper, more efficient and reliable compared to similar run by private sector?
The goal of Obamacare is to ultimately have 100% government run healthcare. Don’t take my word for it, just study what is happening in UK, Canada etc. All non-life-threatening procedures such as hip replacement etc. take back seat, are restricted and there are long delays. Rationing of healthcare is the result.
“Rocky Mountain Health Plans administers the Colorado high-risk pool, along with an agency called GettingUSCovered.”
http://www.denverpost.com/dontmiss/ci_19750414
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