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Aetna Pulls Out Of California Individual Insurance Market In Response To Obamacare
If Obamacare's stated goal was to broaden the health insurance market, give more options to consumers, and generally lower the cost of health insurance, courtesy of the IRS' flawless execution of yet another unprecedented government expansion, it may be in for a tough time. Because while on paper every statist plan of centrally-planned ambitions looks good, in reality things usually don't work out quite as expected. Case in point the news that Aetna will stop selling health insurance to individual consumers in California at the end of 2013, in advance of Obamacare's complete transformation of the insurance market: a transformation which just incidentally may see most private health insurance firms follow in Aetna's steps and the emergence of a single-payer system along the lines of the British National Health Service. A government-mandated and funded system which, needless to say, crushes private enterprise, and ends up costing far more for all involved than an efficient market based on individual wants, needs and capabilities constantly in flux.
But that's ok - there is an administration which is smarter than the entire market, and a Federal Reserve which will monetize any deficit funding, and the only trade off is making the already ridiculous US federal debt ridiculouser.
For more irony we go to the WSJ which informs us that that "pullout is likely to draw attention as California has become a focus of national debate over the law's impact. Supporters, including President Barack Obama, who highlighted the state in a recent speech, argue that it has shown the success of the health overhaul in encouraging competition and pushing down prices."
If in some parallel socialist universe, the exit of competitors ends up boosting competition, than yes, we agree. In this one, however, things are a little... different.
For now, Aetna is just the start. A relatively small start:
Aetna said it currently has about 49,000 individual policyholders in California. In 2011, when it had substantially bigger membership, it was the fourth-biggest player in the state's consumer market, with about 5.2% of the plans sold that year, according to a report from Citigroup Inc.
Aetna isn't one of the 13 insurers participating in the state's new consumer insurance marketplace set to launch this fall under the federal law. Like several other major national carriers, it has said it would join only a limited number of these exchanges. A carrier can still offer consumer plans without being in the exchange.
Aetna said it will continue selling health insurance in California to employers and Medicare beneficiaries, as well as dental and life-insurance products. The insurer said it is "fully committed to serving the needs of our 1.5 million members in the state." A company spokeswoman declined to comment about the reasons for Aetna's individual-business withdrawal.
As long as those members aren't on individual insurance: those members will have to find a different provider of insurance.
People who currently have Aetna individual health coverage will have to find plans with other carriers by year-end. That might be easier because of the federal health law's requirements that insurers no longer decline coverage or set premiums based on people's health history, but still, "it's going to be confusing" for Aetna policyholders, said Ken Fasola, chief executive of HealthMarkets Inc., parent of insurance agency Insphere Insurance Solutions. His firm plans to send written notice to affected clients, then follow up with calls and, if wanted, visits.
Aetna is just the first to crunch the numbers and realize that one indeed has to pass a law first to find out how much money will be lost - by private companies - as a result.
The health law is expected to expand the individual insurance business, but the new coverage rules will also mean major changes. Also, in the new exchanges, consumers are expected to focus closely on costs, particularly monthly premiums. Insurers may find it tough to compete if they don't have scale in a particular market, partly because they can't match the prices that competitors win from health-care providers.
As for the "model" assumptions behind Obamacare, it is likely too late to clarify that one does not get strong competition in an artificial marketplace in which the service providers are dropping out one by one.
The Obama administration has highlighted its expectation that the new health-insurance marketplaces will generally boast strong competition, with around 90% of consumers buying their own plans living in states where there would be products from at least five insurers.
But in at least some places, the offerings will be limited. In Washington state, for instance, nine insurers bid to sell plans in the individual market but only one carrier, Kaiser Permanente, bid to sell a small-business plan through the exchange in some counties, forcing Washington officials to cancel plans to run a full small-business exchange for the first year.
So instead of "strong competition" the end results was a government-enforced... monopoly. And guess who has all the pricing power in a monopoly.
Oh well, such is life under "central-planning" - the end result is always complete disaster, but at least the intentions to promote "fairness" were quite noble.
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There I go cheering for Team Logic against Team F-Bomb again. I need a psychiatrist or something, I guess.
Team F-Bomb is more fun.
A nice example of how one's emotion makes them irrational. Thanks Rand.
Even when one thinks they are independent or even conservative, when emotions take over - liberalism and death.
"Did he implant the same idea in all of humanity, that we could benefit from advances in medicine and not die horribly when it is easily prevented? Forgive me if I don't trust your fucking charity."
Charity?
All that medical advancement you speak of was done pro-bono to get us where we are today?
Don't trust in my charity dipshit. Provide for yourself twit.
Sorry, these were more important then people:
http://www.gyroamerica.com/images/Arizona,%20NM,%20Texas/Mothball-Fleet-...
depressing.
channel stuffing the warfighting apparatus
That's actually a really cool tour if you're ever in Tucson.
Not for long. Check an oil price chart. Set the timescale to ... 150 years. Cheers.
How did this get downed? Your comment is the truth.
Where they can minimize costs by distributing them.
In our small biz (14 employees) in MD, our plan was going to go from ~$400/mo to ~$640 for an individual. It made sense to pay for two younger employees insurance to keep it to ~$440. I cant directly attribute it to ACA, but it has to be related, somehow.
Did you say False Flag?
Thread complete !
Next article
AJ called. He said he misses you.
Jesus Fucking Christ. You guys understand when they are spying you, but when it comes to health care let Big America Reign!!!!!!! Fucking sheep.
when they are spying you?
don't spy me, bro!
And they get to have this exchange. Forever.
Check your logic. Are you saying that we should trust the same government that is illegally spying for their own benefit with managing our healthcare? Who are the sheep, again?
"This is the ultimate false flag. The insurance companies wrote fucking Obamacare. "
No shit Sherlock. Did it ever occur to you that THEY BOTH WANT THE SAME THING???
Health care is NOT an insurable risk-- ask any actuary. Therefore, even though it is called "health insurance", it is NOT insurance. It's a bastard scheme that socializes costs, disconnects consumers from providers, prevents price discovery, and allows a third party to extract $$$ without providing ANY added value or useful benefit.
Obamacare is a stalking horse for implementing full-on single payer, where the 3rd party destroying value becomes the government, instead of the insurance companies. Why are the insurance companies so intimately involved?? Because ideologically they all stand for the same thing-- distorting and raping the system for their own benefit. Therefore, since they all have the same motivation, they are simply contending for the same trough of $$$. It's a political system, and that's the way politics works. It's like two muggers in an alley figuring out a way to work together to rob the same victim.
You actually do not know what is in the bill or how legislation works, do you? You are a total idiot if you thnk insurers like the bill. No one in healthcare likes it. It is a Gordon knot of rules. But you will do it be ause you are in the collective, now.
Fuck Obama.
And fuck Aetna. And Humana. And all of these fucks that think our health is their profit.
Fuck Murica.Hows that.
Fuck what it has become. What it can be (and once was) is a different story.
Fuck you Bernanke! I just like saying that.
My wife is in health care and the stories she tells me about the shit going on now with the doctors and hospitals and insurance companies is nauseating. It really is squeezing maximum profit $ out of everything- no different than building a car. And who is the ultimate cash cow- duh-Medicare/Medicaid.
How dare anyone charge for providing a service I want!
Go fuck yourself.
He can't. The gubermint has not designated the correct permit for self fucking.
Really- I'm married so I am in serious violation of that.
I'm glad we got some stuff cleared up here. See, I was under the mistaken impression that the insurance companies and drug companies bought and paid for Obama Care. We're not seeing buyers's remorse, surely! It's not like the private captains of the various health care industries are dumb fuckers like Congress, who can't be bothered to read the legislation they're signing, or paying for, in this case.
The Most Holy Invisible Hand is PISSED, and He's gearin' up for a smitin'!
There is a huge problem that was clearly explained at a health care conference I attended a few years back. The keynote speaker, a Wharton professor / leading expert in the field of healthcare management, told the audience in many more words "the problem is that no one has figured out how to manage hopitals effectively in the US" for a variety of reasons. If they hadn't figured it out back then, don't see how it is getting any easier with Obamacare on the horizon.
Some one who fucking gets it.
Jump monkeys, JUMP!
Acolytes, economists, and insurance companies.
You miss the point. The insurance companies didn't "buy" Obama-- they are both fighting for the same thing, namely, the taxpayer's wallet. it's a huge prize, and the insurance companies are formidable opponents. Sometimes, when two criminals want the same victim, they try to cooperate instead of trying to kill each other.
No, I don't miss that point.
FTA:
Aetna is just the first to crunch the numbers and realize that one indeed has to pass a law first to find out how much money will be lost - by private companies - as a result.
Think of all the private company money they paid to put this abomination in place.
Dumb. Fuckers.
And I should have some religious angst to show for these criminals? And St. Ayn is rolling in her grave?
Don't be a fool. Just because there is room for only so many pigs at the trough, doesn't mean they won't pay good money to take a crack at that trough.
In other words, you pay your money and you takes your chances. Aetna lost in California, they will win someplace else, but most importantly, the trough is full of slops for the pigs.
I don't think we're arguing.
I don't mind paying for a service, but I do mind paying to insure people like "Dollar" Bill McGuire pulls down 1.7 billion in 5 years and retires after denying coverage to millions of policy holders.
I mind paying for people who sit on their ass and never try to better themselves continually sucking off the teet of the gubermint no matter their income.
11 million US citizens are now on permanent disability. How many of them actually have a condition that warrants full time disabilty?
AMEN!
Every onus is on the productive. Pay your taxes, follow all the rules, sweat and toil - while you support not only your family, but the familes of lazy people who literally fuck off all day every day, and feel good about themselves doing it. It's insidious, and unsustainable.
I don't put all the blame on them, they're acting in self-interest, caught up in a system which doesn't educate them (read: FORCE them to get an education) then sends all the work-a-day jobs to China and other hellholes so corporations can amass extra profits. And we're all forced at gunpoint to use a constantly inflating currency, destroyng the value of work and savings. But for God's sake, let's attach some basic responsibilities to people who suck on the taxpayer teat all day. Asking them to work only one day every two years (going out to vote for demonrats) isn't enough. At a minimum, they shouldn't be having more babies and using drugs.
all of them. they have come down with a bad case of governmentitus. this disease is bound to spread. we will have to burn the place down to stop it. it's like a flesh eating disease.
Fuck the government for fucking up everything it touches.
And fuck the fucking idiots that support the fucking government.
Yeah, thy should do it or free. You should go work or hem for free to be consistent with your comments.
The Liberals cheer for more big government and more Cultural Marxism forced onto American society.
Because they are so sure it is good for us.
"Socialism: Ideas so good they have to be mandatory."
- unknown
these insurance companies should not bite the govt hand that feeds- without the Fed and Ben Shalom printing $ they'd be out of business.
California and Illinois are in competition to fail. Obama's political grooming and connected friends are in Chicago. Obama would tend to help Chicago. It looks like California might fail first.
watching the whole "IL deadbeat govt employee pension reform" shitshow by the pols in IL legislature it is obvious they are not going to do shit- let it implode- and go hat-in-hand to DC.
Keep your eye on Detroit. Whatever statist rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul-can-kicking-reach-around-shell-game they come up with for the Motor City will be coming soon to a town near you.
It will be the same as GM- the bondholders will get fucked and all of the govt union employee slugs will maintain everything they have now.
Eat your broccoli and pray you don't get sick.
I thought it's "eat your peas"- oh well.
1 out of 2 US adults are prediabetic or diabetic. The key to avoiding health problems is to avoid diabetes, the mother of all diseases. The best way to do that is to keep your waist less than half your height
If you want 20 ways to avoid diabetes, try http://avertdiabetes.com/
Santosh Keswani the website has programming errors.
...and avoid the insane subisidized farming diet that maximizes high glycemic load processed grain carbohydrate bombs as "food." (Thanks Monsanto and ADM.)
Most of the developing world subsists on rice, which has a much higher glycemic content than corn. The US's problem isn't diet, it's the sedentary lifestyle.
"The People of Walmart" are a good cross section:
http://media-cache-ec4.pinimg.com/550x/70/92/a4/7092a4585fb470a98b03a58e...
Unfortunately, most Americans' waists are two times their IQs.
4 inch waists? damn- that's something Karen Carpenter would envy.
And don't drink diet soda or use any artificial sweeteners, they absolutely kill your Pancreas and fuck with your system.
Who the heck downvoted that comment? It's common sense and easily vetted.
Enjoy your Diet Coke moron. In fact, have 12.
I eat my broccoli but yet i may have to go for gall bladder surgery if don't get the gall stones under control. I have no insurance, So now i am really screwed
Take a trip to Oklahoma.
http://www.surgerycenterok.com/
"The Surgery Center of Oklahoma is a 32,535 square foot, state-of-the-art multispecialty facility in Oklahoma City, owned and operated by approximately 40 of the top surgeons and anesthesiologists in central Oklahoma.
If you have a high deductible or are part of a self-insured plan at a large company, you owe it to yourself or your business to take a look at our facility and pricing which is listed on this site. If you are considering a trip to a foreign country to have your surgery, you should look here first. Finally, if you have no insurance at all, this facility will provide quality and pricing that we believe are unmatched.
About SCO
The Surgery Center of Oklahoma is a 32,535 square foot, state-of-the-art multispecialty facility in Oklahoma City, owned and operated by approximately 40 of the top surgeons and anesthesiologists in central Oklahoma.
The facility has been accredited by the AAAHC since 1998 without interruption and has annually provided care to thousands of patients.
If you have a high deductible or are part of a self-insured plan at a large company, you owe it to yourself or your business to take a look at our facility and pricing which is listed on this site. If you are considering a trip to a foreign country to have your surgery, you should look here first. Finally, if you have no insurance at all, this facility will provide quality and pricing that we believe are unmatched.
PrevNext
It is no secret to anyone that the pricing of surgical services is at the top of the list of problems in our dysfunctional healthcare system. Bureaucracy at the insurance and hospital levels, cost shifting and the absence of free market principles are among the culprits for what has caused surgical care in the United States to be cost prohibitive. As more and more patients find themselves paying more and more out of pocket, it is clear that something must change. We believe that a very different approach is necessary, one involving transparent and direct pricing.
Transparent, direct, package pricing means the patient knows exactly what the cost of the service will be upfront.
Fees for the surgeon, anesthesiologist and facility are all included in one low price. There are no hidden costs, charges or surprises.
The pricing outlined on this website is not a teaser, nor is it a bait-and-switch ploy. It is the actual price you will pay. We can offer these prices because we are completely physician-owned and managed. We control every aspect of the facility from real estate costs, to the most efficient use of staff, to the elimination of wasteful operating room practices that non-profit hospitals have no incentive to curb. We are truly committed to providing the best quality care at the lowest possible price."
Captain, this may help:
"Barley Can Help Prevent GallstonesEating foods high in insoluble fiber, such as barley, can help women avoid gallstones, shows a study published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.
Studying the overall fiber intake and types of fiber consumed over a 16 year period by almost 70,000 women in the Nurses Health Study, researchers found that those consuming the most fiber overall (both soluble and insoluble) had a 13% lower risk of developing gallstones compared to women consuming the fewest fiber-rich foods.
Those eating the most foods rich in insoluble fiber gained even more protection against gallstones: a 17% lower risk compared to women eating the least. And the protection was dose-related; a 5-gram increase in insoluble fiber intake dropped risk dropped 10%.
How do foods rich in insoluble fiber help prevent gallstones? Researchers think insoluble fiber not only speeds intestinal transit time (how quickly food moves through the intestines), but reduces the secretion of bile acids (excessive amounts contribute to gallstone formation), increases insulin sensitivity and lowers triglycerides (blood fats). Abundant in all whole grains, insoluble fiber is also found in nuts and the edible skin of fruits and vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers, many squash, apples, berries, and pears. In addition, beans provide insoluble as well as soluble fiber."
Hope you don't need the surgery.
There are meds you may be able to dissolve them with. They also often give symptom relief early on. No eay way out, though. Good luck.
hey Cap'n, here's a link that offers up some alternatives to broccoli, with many people chiming in on their methods and results.
y'never know, and best of luck.
This will not be an isolated incident.
Health "insurance" was never built on free enterprise. Didn't even exist until New Deal. Before that, you got sick, you paid out of pocket to get better. Or not. There were always a few charity clinics.
The government incursion into health care has been the biggest driver of cost increases, followed by defensive medicine to avoid malpractice lawsuits. Getting the gubmint out of health care and capping medmal claims like Texas did would save $500 billiion year.
You can get 1932-level health care dirt cheap today. In 1932 the biggest expense following a cancer or diabetes diagnosis was your coffin.
The "problem" that's driving costs now is that money can postpone death. Accepting fate was much cheaper.
You could stay in the hospital back then w/o going bankrupt.
Again, you can stay in a 1932-level hospital bed dirt cheap today. No fancy electronic monitoring, no careful handling of used needles, no antibiotics --
http://www.nch.org/patients/payment-billing/rates-fees.php
I don't know if they tack on electronic monitoring to the bill, probably do, but your pills would be extra.
Right, and those inexpensive drugs and machines that are costly but last for years of amortization - that all adds up to $6000/day. The bigger problem is that you're paying for your stay, and three of the other people in adjoining rooms, and malpractice insurance, and all the rest. The system caters to looters (lawyers, bureaucrats) and leeches (free riders). Mr. and Mrs. Tax Donkey get it in the rear, as always.
Hey you fucking idiot. Did you ever stop to wonder why health care is the only industry in the history of mankind where advanced technology is associated with skyrocketing costs, and not collapsing costs?
HINT: it doesn't have anything to do with the real cost of technology.
Yeh, but you will have to listen to a doctor who tells you that if you don't wise us and eat right, think right and get some smart execsise that you are gonna die.
By and large you paid right to the Dr. For the services. There Wasn't a huge layer between you and the Dr. Taking the money from you taking a huge cut and giving the Dr. A small slice.
Medicine for most all of history up until the modern era was not a money making profit enterprise. It was humanitarian and scientific.
Now, that is not to say what we have now is all bad. We have better and more healthcare available to more people. In a free market we make choices. I suspect even without massive government intervention we would choose to make it an industry.
Get ready for a lot more of this, and a lot worse care and access.
This is not totally unexpected. Government regulations often encourages monopoly. It's a oxymoron to say government creates "more" competition than free markets. It's usually the other way around. It actually lowers competition. This can be seen in other sectors of the economy. This is nothing new. Government creating "stronger" competition is plainly propaganda. If you actually believed it, you simply have great ignorance sorry to say, and the article makes a lot of sense. Only big players in the markets benefit from this law by weeding out the weaker competition with less scale in the market promoting a monopoly.
We passed this part of the discussion years ago. There is no competition only "The Bernak"
And the big companies will be crushed by people not buying their overpriced crap plans.
We need to crash the entire sick-care industry. Show up at the emergency room like the illegals and fuck the establishment.
Declare bankruptcy and make the fuckers pay; it's the only way to bring sanity back to the situation. The only thing you have to fear is fear itself, right?
Aetna, I'm glad I met y........HEY, WHERE YOU GOIN?!
To the lobby to write another Bill. That lines even more fucking pockets of more fucking assholes while people suffer. Jesus, am I the only one who sees the fuck job these guys are doing on all of us?
I admit I am ignorant as to the ins-and-outs of the health insurance industry, but I do believe that the profit motive brings us more innovation and a higher quality of life across all industries and sectors. The problem is, to your point LTER, when they collude with government to squeeze out the competition (read: Federal Reserve System) and are then able to fuck us for a profit.
I'm not sure if Aetna is getting squeezed or is in bed with DC. Maybe you could enlighten me on that.
For fuck's sake, Meat Hammer. You really don't know that the insurance companies are in bed with big Gov?
I don't know which insurance companies are in bed with them and which are going to get the Lehman treatment.
You need a hug?
No, you're not the only one who sees the marriage of goverment and corporate power (fascism). But the solution isn't more government power, it's less government power.
$20 for each EKG electode sticker on my last bill... Yea I see it -- can't cost more than a nickel to manufacture. The system is so horribly fucked that a doc in my town opened up a practice and doesn't take ANY insurance. $225 per visit and you get 40 uninterrupted minutes with him. He filled up within a month and isn't taking any new patients.
Only a matter of time before more opt out options develop... and then get crushed by new laws and regulations.
Who woulda thunk we'd see black market medicine in this country?
Yeah, there's a story tonight on Drudge about a KS doctor who has stopped taking insurance and offers just such a service, with some kind of solution for catastrophic care. But that won't be allowed to stand. The patients will get better care at a lower cost, and the doctors won't be feeding the fascist system, so they will be called 'unfair' and slimed by the likes of President Puke. In the long run it will be illegal to contract privately for care. Too selfish.
I had Atena for 2 years, those fuckers denied every single claim submitted, they would only pay when the claim was resubmitted a second time.
It was too much when they refused to pay for my newborn son's well baby check at the pediatrician stating he had a "preexisting condition".
I had to hear an explanation for that one.
They seemed puzzled as I explained to them how my son was not diagnosed with gastric reflux 3 months before he was born.
Assholes never seemed to have a problem cashing my checks... Just paying claims.
Well what do you expect, they add no value to the process, only extract it.
Since I'm one of those 49,000 I'd like to sue Hussein Obama for the lies he continually told about "keeping my health insurance". But, I'll gladly settle for his immediate resignation and deportation back to whatever African backwater Marxist shithole he's really from. That includes his fugly wife and their litter too.
I'm not sure it's 'their' litter. Moo-shell may have birthed them, but I seriously doubt BHO has ever stuck it to his beard. And the two girls look so unlike one another that a DNA test is in order.
That is one scary bitch. What a sight in the morning rolling out of bed next to that.
"A government-mandated and funded system which, needless to say, crushes private enterprise, and ends up costing far more for all involved than an efficient market based on individual wants, needs and capabilities constantly in flux."
There hasn't been an efficient free market in health care in the US in decades.
Are you saying US healthcare was free market before Obamacare? Medicare (Medicare Act of 1965) is free market? Community rating is free market? Politicians writing laws that mandate to cover certain things is free market? Tax loophole where people want their employers to sponsor their health insurance is free market? Why you think unions have cadillac healthcare?
There hasn't been a free market in the US period for a very long time, let alone in healthcare. There was no health care crisis in america before the 1960's, even during the 60's. Laws like Medicare is where healthcare inflation started. Free market is not a conspiracy to keep profits high, it's the other way around, competition lowers profits as a tendency. It's when politicians write laws to get votes is what screws up healthcare. No copout excuses like "people are getting older", or "technology is more expensive" holds any water. Just like the source of inflation in the money supply comes from the Federal Reserve, the source of inflation in healthcare comes from government central planning. Most people don't like the truth. They like to blame evil capitalist or cowboy capitalism run amok which is a lazy answer to a question of health care inflation. It's more like government run amok. Obamacare is just more government in the soup. Slurp it up.
Exactly correct. That is government s.o.p. rulebook 101:
1. Invent crisis
2. Propose more government power to “fix” crisis
3. Make situation worse
4. Repeat
Yes! I would add one point to 1 and 3: Blame all failures on free market and free people.
hey, in the 60's, b/4 the health care job perk insurance scam bs started the cost to deliver a baby was an oz of gold for a 3 day stay or aaprox $26-no complications.
Today, ha, 4-5 oz and guess who is pocketing 3-4 oz pure needless price gouging monopilized profit?
earth to someone, what is wrong that can be corrected b/4 it implodes or the gov decides who lives and dies...
only control you have over this is to eat properly, exercise and hope your genes don't take you out...
Well I have a Blue Cross receipt from Sept 1946....1 kid delivered in the hospital...a 7 day stay @ $5.50/day...$12 for the Delivery Room...some other charges for a total of $75.80....Insurance covered $70.80....cost $5 out of pocket...7 'effing days in the hospital.
Health "insurance" became established in WW2 as a way for government war contractors to increase perceived compensation without raising salaries. It is the bastard child of a socialized wartime economy.
Who says we won WW2?
"So if somebody wants to build a [insert business here], they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that [insert regulation here]."
Hope and change y'all
Even if your business survives his evil predation, 'you didn't build that. Someone else made that happen.'
A sane society would have marched on the white house and forcibly removed this stain for those words alone. He's never built anything except animosity - it drives his supporters, and his policies and his utterly insane and childish rhetoric generate it in his targets. He's the king of animosity. But it's all good and he gets a pass because he's black. The press is busy bobbing up and down between his spindly legs.
Yep
Called it right in 2009 with both DeParle and Sebelius lacking biz intelligence..and insurers walked all over them. Academia alone fails today. Lack of Biz Intelligence as well as not having any Health IT experience hands on, ate up Sebelius and company. Software selling in excess is so easily done with non techs as their purchase “does what they promise” but on how many platforms and levels”. Easy to convince a novice that they “need” the software as the novices are lacking in project management as well as biz intelligence so they get duped and think they have a good deal. Later on at the ranch after several such purchases you have this massive collection of software that now “needs to communicate” with the other purchases. Good news for more software folks for a sale to write all kinds of programs as middle wear to integrate.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2009/03/nancy-ann-deparle-and-kathleen-sebelius.html
Poor old duped HHS just thinks this is what works, and of course it does for a huge priceJ Middleware companies are largely subsidiaries of insurers, bingo they score again! Software builds on itself and without proper and good project management, these monsters just keep growing, all the while the purchasers think they are making the best decisions..wrong..problem with HHS being run by novices sadly and this will blow up soon when the equally digital illits on the GOP side ask “what are we getting for our money” and as bliss as they are and not tech literate, they will make a point so which HHS won’t be able to respond in an intelligent way to sustain their expenditures.
Again with the right person in the right job, a lot of this would have been recognized and caught sooner, as what do you think insurers do..they outdo the government with models and formulas hands down and the US should really look into the value of hired quants who can pursue this information ahead of the game. In the sad meantime, big troubles for HHS and the result of hiring an executive with no tech in her background. Now she looks bad “begging” for money from non profits for project “Enroll” and look at how insurers are “designing” the choices.
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More proof of lack of interest in state run health insurance exchanges. AARP for the last couple of years or so has been pushing Aetna versus United for those going through AARP so this should be interesting to see what comes out from them with offering to find those who enrolled via AARP a new insurance policy.
I added a little commentary here on how the exchanges are shaping up as well. Again HHS got sold some goods here that someone with IT experience may have been a little wiser to figure out the marketing and lobby interests of insurers to continue to protect and yield more profits. As we are seeing now with the subsidiaries from insurance companies that function in the Health IT area, the insurers are right on to bid for those projects and increase revenue, while at the same time working their own business models to keep themselves out of having to insure consumers buying via exchanges. It’s pretty interesting to see how they have modeled all of this and with the public images they put out in the media with their wellness and other subsidiaries.
I’m sure that subsidiaries like the United LHI division that gets tons of money from the military, they would more than likely prefer not a lot of notoriety on their efforts there as it focuses on where they went for their money with the government, not to HHS but to DOD and the VA insteadJ In California and in other states we are seeing the big insurers not participating with the exception of WellPoint.
WellPoint almost “has” to participate in exchanges as their market demographics are such large numbers of individual policies when you compare to the contracts of United and Humana and Aetna. They want the employer and military business. WellPoint too wants the military business but that’s not where their current day clientele lies, they are lop sided with more consumer policies unlike the others. So add to the confusion with California state commissioner wanting WellPoint out of the exchanges due to high pricing…well who’s left?
United, with their lawsuit in suing the DOD for the western states contract squashed the military Tri-Care contract WellPoint subsidiary Tri-West. Without this mix United and the others very well see the marketing vulnerability they imposed on WellPoint by getting the western Tri-Care Military contract, said to be worth over 20 billion or more over 6 years. Tri-West the subsidiary of WellPoint who had the Tri-Care contract is now in the process of going out of business. Tri-West had its group of subsidiaries too and United has given some of them contracts to continue some of the work and probably at some point in time United will buy them up as well. In the article below I have links to both the SEC listings of United and Aetna with subsidiaries. Again keep in mind with United this is only a skeleton as if you look up Optum and some of their other large subsidiaries, they have their own subs in a daisy chain too.
Here’s what a physician wrote to me about Blue Cross and their compensation in California. Not a lot of incentive for doctors to be too enthusiastic about insurance exchanges…so WellPoint is in a different position than the others with their mix of clientele demographics. Yes indeed the big insurers are modeling for profits, tons of millions on exchanges spent…and…well…gives politicians on the other side a big stick to accuse HHS of wasting money, which they have due to Health IT and modeling ignorance, but how and why this happened will basically never be explained adequately to the consumer. The insures lobbied and player on government lackings to the hilt for profits and consumers an doctors are hurt again. Aetna has a new division to focus on more government contracts, any surprise here..guess they will follow United who has found better clients with the military and they are so valuable that they even sued the government to get the west coast TriCare contract...too big to jail or fail anyone?
“By being contracted to Blue Cross they have already assigned us (without warning or our permission) to be members of the Insurance Exchanges in 2014. These will pay us 70% of what we get now or maybe less. Furthermore Blue Cross which continues to raise its premiums (so that their CEO can make tens of millions of dollars per year, etc) has also reduced the fee schedule to physicians as of 2013.....it was already amongst the lowest, now it is even lower. Why should they not pay us more when the premiums they collect go higher and higher.”
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/06/aetna-individual-policy-consumers...
Close down the Federal Government. The United States no longer needs them.
Oh please... dont act like the last two health insurance companies were doing any competing anyway
When you're getting mugged, and they got the drop on you, does it really matter how many of them there are? One huge guy, or half a dozen little guys...either way....You're gonna lose all your money, and possibly your life.
I thought companies are people and people cannot opt out of Obama-care.
I'm surprised a lot of you miss the point. Until Wall St. is removed from all of health care there is nothing to talk about. "Markets" free or otherwise? Please.
One doctor in Portland, ME is no longer accepting any insurance (including the "Meds"), slashed his prices and cut his staff (he's busy). When other docs grow a pair like this guy, there is a chance. The network game and opaque pricing does not a market make no matter who runs it.
Sorry, but health care should not be for profit. Period. Our "results" tell the story here. Look around the world and see the shame we should all feel.
Here's another one to chew on: http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/06/13/democrat-not-fair-to-subject-congress-to-obamacare-just-like-everyone-else/
The whole thing is a freak show.
So someone who fucks off all through school and works tending bar of flashing their tits gets to sell their labor for a profit, but not doctors? What single profession is more important than doctoring?
apparently you can fuck off all through school, but if you can throw a ball or catch one you are way more important than doctors. You make a hell of a lot more.
Feel free to broadcast your next checkup and sell advertisement to generate the funds to pay your doctor a higher salary
It'll help if your doctor is a hot 20 yr old Victoria Secret bitch wearing wings and not much else
Alright, point taken. Please explain what these idiot MULTI million dollar C-suite morons that make more than any doctor I have ever known bring to the table with regard to your health care. Be careful here, I used to be one of those morons before I made a decision not to be. Never did realize those MULTI millions that were promised over the years...
Being a parent.
My problem with the oft offered argument that "health care" or "health insurance" is a human right... I've heard it a thousand times. Well, extrapolating...If "free" healthcare is a human right, surely (1) free food be even more of a human right? ...and then even (2) "free" or government supplied shelter for every citizen? (For every citizen) Afterall, these are daily needs.
Welcome to the future debate.
Forgot to add this on Aetna...they just recently in December of 2012 settled for $120 million for underpaying doctors, hospitals and patients for 13-15 years using Ingenix (now defunct) algorithms to calculate. Ingenix is the old name for United Healthcare's Optum Insights division, the folks who do code and analytics and sell your prescription data:) United, of course being they created the formulas licensed it to all the other big carriers and one by one including themselves they are settling. Healthnet settled a while back as well. They all used the Ingenix formulas to calculate customary fees which were low balled.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/12/one-more-court-case-settles-for-1...
I am not going to buy anything from any insurance company.
I will pay the I.R.S. penalty if I have to, and make them deal with it.
I will not be forced to buy from the corporatocracy, pay for abortions, or support the Kleptoligarchy.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/world-exclusive-iran...
Iran will send 4,000 troops to aid Bashar al-Assad’s forces in SyriaThank you, nice change of direction.
Thanks for the hijacking. I hope Iran's troops at least have affordable health care. I wonder if Aetna is underwriting THEIR system.
Hijacking? After something like 100+ comments? Lulz??
http://rt.com/news/egypt-ties-morsi-syria-764/
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/gulfnews/qatar-emir-set-to-transfer-power-to...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22924799
US warns of conflict spreading beyond national borders after Sunni group boasts of new firepower online
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/16/syrian-jihadists-anti-aircra...
Bullish for airliners being shot down...
PLEASE...PLEASE...I recant!!!! Give mt the blue pill. Jesus H , how much more of this can I/we stand?
On second thoughts....FUCK'EM. Give me some more o' those Red babies....to the grave FUCKERS!!!
The medical industry is going to fall apart. Who the hell would want to put their kids through medical school, only to have them at the mercy of the Federal Government and at the same time face a moutain of Debt for that schooling on top of it all.
F that!
It is.
http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/upiUPI-20130614-235806-4920
Eat organice and do yoga, your healthcare needs will plummet. Not saying you can't get sick, but it's an entire new way to live. Oxygenated blood to extremities and vastly improved vascular. Not to mentin girlfriends half your age...yuk yuk. Okay they cost a little more, but THEY ALL COST ANYWAY'S, DO THE MATH!
I call bullshit on this flavor of Tyler.
Americans pay twice as much per capita for their 'health' care. It sucks, and no amount of pretending can transform private enterprise into the god that will save us all. This fucker is so broken you can make a smoothie out of it.
News flash based on observation rather than religious views: sometimes private enterprise is an even bigger ass than government. The U.S. medical system is one of those bigger asses.
Just because the British voodoo system is a pile of crap doesn't make the U.S. steamy load any less fetid.
Please see posts above and crack a history book. In spite of heavy government involvements, the US is still the source of most medical advances. Government is the shit version of king Midas.
And who owns the patent on those advances? Who has access to most of those advances? How many medical advances have come out of battlefield medicine? Does that justify perpetual war for the sake of medical advances?
Fiat money insures perpetual war. At least we get some good tech from it.
As long as illegal immigrants get fair and equal healthcare I am fine with it all.
I salute California and it's position on healthcare.
As long as it's free, I'll buy it.
Aetna's still in California, though,
to be sure.
Aetna Makes Out By Not
Incurring Shifted Unreimbursed
Cost, And While That Cost's New
Coverage Is A Good Thing, It's
Risk Defined, With That Risk
Piled Onto The Taxpayer.
I Think This Is A Point That Is
Lost On At Least Some Of The
Most Well Intended ACA
Enthusiasts.
This Is Also Why This Is The
Stock Market's Best
Performing Sector.
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/candleglance.html?aet%2Cci%2Cunh%2Cwlp
The Difference Between
A System With High Risk Here,
But Not There, Vs. One With
Sector-Wide Risk Equalization,
Is Like The Difference Between
Homogenized Whole Milk
And Ice Cream.
They're Two Entirely Different Products.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/05/obamacare-fowler-lobbyist-industry1?INTCMP=SRCH
http://news.yahoo.com/insurers-nervous-over-prospect-romney-victory-115914066--finance.html
What a bunch of BS. If the US had a single payer system a-la Britain, or even Canada, how so many people wouldn't have to go broke for health issues.
A physician has told the British Medical Journal about the “unique horror” of watching a newborn baby shrivel up and die under a cost-cutting system of socialized healthcare that withdraws feeding tubes from sick and disabled babies, a method that could be replicated in the United States under Obamacare.
Bernadette Lloyd, a hospice paediatric nurse, also revealed how parents are being coerced into agreeing to put their children on the LCP, and that she “Witnessed a 14 year-old boy with cancer die with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth when doctors refused to give him liquids by tube. His death was agonising for him, and for us nurses to watch. This is euthanasia by the backdoor.”
“I have also seen children die in terrible thirst because fluids are withdrawn from them until they die,” added Lloyd.
http://www.infowars.com/will-sick-babies-be-starved-to-death-under-obama...
Very much like US private insurers denying clients of what they need, right?
Theirs is worse. Before the govt got involved this country had a great health care system. Dr. Ron Paul says no one went without.
Well, I know many people in Britain and none of them went without health care. And damn, it didn't cost 'em a dime. Even for diseases like MS, which requires a lifetime of expensive medication, they were covered. But I also know people in the US who did go without health care, either because they couldn't pay or because they were denied. I don't know what govt has to do here, except of not having a state-run health care for all like in most countries (even in the one I'm now, there's state sponsored health care, there's also coops, and private health insurance; all 3 living and complementing each other....). I don't give a fuck what Ron Paul says, he's not my god. I have eyes, I can see and can read history. And I can know when he says bullshit. I have a brain of my own you see?
If you have eyes, why do you ignore the many documented stories of NHS refusing treatment/leaving people to die in their hospitals? Maybe your friends in the UK are just lucky.
The "many documented stories" seem more like anecdotes rather than a constant. Systems fail, human systems fail alllright. NHS not working perfectly for absolutely everyone might be a reality. But between the eventual fail from the NHS to the get-sick-go-broke reality in the US, there's a wide world of difference.
" it didn't cost 'em a dime"
Who paid for it then, and what are taxes like in Britain?
RP lived it.
At least you pay taxes and get medical coverage. There are those other places where you pay taxes and you also have to pay extra for healthcare which sometimes never comes.
Half of America pays no income taxes, dolt!
There are other taxes besides income taxes. Poor people pay taxes. It's people like Warren Buffet who avoid paying taxes.
One World Mafia,
Ah, the Liverpool Care Pathway no? I have heard its even worse if you be an old person lying in your own filth while being purposely with held fluids and food.
We really are turning into monsters.
Joseph Stalin would approve. "Death solves all problems -- no man, no problem."
You don't understand the organisaton and modus operandi of the British NHS.
In large part, patients are low down on the list of its priorities. I know more about regular medical conditions than many GPs and I know many of them talk complete and utter rubbish.
Biggest drivers of cost in US health care are (1) end of life care and (2) poor people using ambulance services and ERs unnecessarily. If we say no to unjustifiable and expensive EOL procedures (like the single payer systems routinely do) and allow ERs and ambulances to say no to people who can't pay (currently extremely illegal under federal law) then we can get costs under control. Everything else is just rearranging deck chairs on the Hindenburg.