Insurance Companies Warn that Obamacare Will Collapse the System
Posted by Jim Hoft on Monday, October 19, 2009, 5:31 AM
Colorado Insurance companies are warning that Obamacare will collapse the insurance industry.
Maybe that’s the plan.
The Denver Post reported:
Colorado insurance executives, cautious supporters of health care reform throughout the past year, are now warning that current proposals could cause a “system collapse.”
At issue are what insurance companies consider absurdly low penalties for people who choose not to buy health insurance.
Their concern: People will buy insurance only when they desperately need it, such as after they’re diagnosed with cancer or heart disease.
Healthy people might choose to pay the penalty, now proposed at a few hundred dollars per year, because it is far less expensive than buying insurance.
Insurance companies, under that scenario, would end up spending more to treat patients than they would receive in premiums. Rates would rise even faster than they do now.
And if there are no insurance companies we will all be dependent on the government even more. It’s the statist’s dream.
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John Cooper commented:
This is exactly what bankrupt the system in Massachusetts.
nickless commented:
The government is going to do for medical insurance what it did for mortgage lending: Require businesses to make bad business decisions. If the private system becomes so distorted by senseless mandates, it will collapse.
*Of course* that’s the intention. All the people behind this system are on the record as advocating single payer…this is just a brief layover on that trip.
Gregory of Yardale commented:
Wouldn’t it make more sense for the Government to set up a system just for covering pre-existing and catastrophic conditions, while letting insurance companies continue to offer a range of plans for covering routine care? Wouldn’t that lower insurance costs, while creating a system to cover severe needs?
Or, would that just make too much sense?
MagicalPat commented:
Gregory:
It would make too much sense, except for one thing. The same laws of human nature would still apply. Everyone would wait to buy insurance until they had a catastrophic illness, then they would run to the Government for the coverage.
Once again, the statists win.
It would only work if the Government refused to cover anything other than pre-existing conditions and catastrophic care. What are the chances of that?
Uriel commented:
I believe their true intention is to break the insurance system…with a slow death. Maybe it will give commissioned insurance agents enough time to get out and find a different job before they are ruined and lose everything they have worked for while selling insurance policies.
Then we can all have bad medicine like the other socialized med countries…and watch the ‘elite’ classes take their money to other countries for better and faster care while we sit in the waiting room for 6 months.
This really stinks. But the Dems hold all the power and will do what they want to do to US.
sigh~~
manateespirit commented:
And then when the insurance companies collapse and the workers become unemployed, what will the unemployment rate become at that time? We can’t predict the future, but it would make sense as the government takes more and more, private industries will disappear.
Is there no one in this administration or Congress with common sense? They remind me of children, it’s instant gratification, let’s deal with only the problem at hand, which they are really not…most people are happy with their insurance…they should take of the uninsured at this point, then work on the rest of the system later. But NO! Let’s just cut out all these insurance jobs and to hell with the consequences. The administration got its way. That’s all it wants and we will wallow in its system.
GrayRider commented:
Insurance companies should have vigorously opposed ObamaCare from the very beginning instead of getting in bed with the Statists. It was stupid for them to think that they could co-exist with the socialists who’s avowed purpose in health care reform is to push everyone onto government care/control by collapsing private insurers.
Redwine commented:
Not this. Not that. Dear Leader Hussein and his cronies are here to destroy America. Period.
Nothing else matters.
squeaky commented:
when you plan on replacing a system – you really don’t worry about bad behavior.
Kenny Solomon commented:
Y’all need to read Fredrick Pohl’s two books, “The Merchant’s War” and “The Cool War”.
We’re in place with the operational beginnings of his scenario – A one-world government, only a few ‘corporations’ running everything, all private businesses made illegal, chips in everyone and everything.
Complete control over every single aspect of human existence.
Martin commented:
I feel so bad for these insurance companies. Obamacare will force them to become competitive. That will be so bad for them
You realize you are worried about ruthless companies that are just like the top 7 banks in this country? Poor big companies….
They have increased profits 476% in the past 7 years – during really bad economic times and we are worried for them?
Hypogean commented:
Martin
October 19th, 2009 | 7:41 am
You realize you are worried about ruthless companies that are just like the top 7 banks in this country? Poor big companies….
They have increased profits 476% in the past 7 years – during really bad economic times and we are worried for them?
Well, see, Martin, I’m not willing to accept Third World health care just to “get back” at companies that are profitable. Apparently you believe that running insurance companies out of business will benefit us. Have you ever dealt with the Veteran’s Administration hospitals or the Indian Health Services? Both use draconian rationing to keep costs down.
Four states have government-run health care: Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Tennessee. All are nonfunctional.
I want a higher quality of life than you want, Martin. It doesn’t bother me that insurance companies are profitable. However, it bothers me when the government takes away my choices and substitutes them with lousy government-run versions that are worse than what I had before.
You can loudly support the diminishing of your quality of life, but you won’t hear me doing that.
Redwine commented:
Martin – You miss something in your sarcastic remarks. Why burn the system to the ground and replace it with a new system that will not only cost more than 2 trillion dollars – a cost that will be borne entirely by the already overburdened taxpayer, but will essentially “enslave” the population to political dictats.
Most people across the political spectrum, would agree that the insurance industry needs an overhaul, i.e. tort reform. The feasible path would be to carry out this reform to bring greater competition and lower costs across state lines and with a greater variety of coverage for the entire population.
Martin commented:
You put your trust in the insurance companies…and your health. Good idea.
Martin commented:
Almost on command you come in with the Tort Reform.
The insurance companies are like the credit card companies. They will find loopholes and continually not have our health and our best interests first.
No one said burn it to the ground. Just give them a little competition.
The federal employee program is highly regulated and could work. They have specific regulations on price coverage etc. The great part is they adjust and compete accordingly and make a lot of $$
spayandneuter commented:
If an industry is getting 47M new clients it is logically going to be booming not crashing. They will need to be hiring people instead of having job losses.
http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/07/uninsured/index.htm
IMHO, they are more worried about the new regulations, such as not being able to decline coverage. And potential deregulation of being able to cross state lines which will cause them to be majorly competitive.
I will save my sympathy and tears for all the animals that we can’t find homes for before the “health care industry”.
Rosemary Woodhouse commented:
Martin, The federal deficit is currently at 1.42 trillion. Government has no qualms running sky high deficits. Private business cannot function in the red. Ergo, there will BE no competition. Government run health care will bankrupt insurance companies. They cannot “compete”.
ghHorse commented:
well that’s stating the obvious …
Redwine commented:
The problem here, Martin, is that this massive, burdensome takeover puts health care and the insurance industry in the hands of the incompetent government and federal regulators. If the bulk of the system were to remain private, doctors could save hours of precious time that could be spent on patients and not on bureaucratic red tape. Insurance is a matter best left to the private sector and the patient’s choice.
But this is practically moot, in the current climate. The One and his cronies are out to decimate the private sector. It will take many long and difficult years to reverse the damage.
Chisum commented:
Oh look, it must be Moron Monday. Martin is here!
Martin, how are you making out with passing all those parrot feathers?
.
Hypogean commented:
Martin
October 19th, 2009 | 7:59 am
You put your trust in the insurance companies…and your health. Good idea.
Much better to put your trust in the people who ran Cash for Clunkers (failure) and who run HAMP (failure), TARP (failure), the stimulus legislation (failure) the Indian Health Services (failure), and the VA hospitals (failure).
Kenneth commented:
Of course it will collapse the system, that’s the whole damn idea. Look up the “Cloward-Piven strategy”. The basic idea is that it is impossible to bring a classic workers revolution to America. Instead, “progressives” must work inside the system to overload the state institutions, bringing about collapse of the institution, thereby compelling the people to accept the government stepping in to take “emergency” measures to solve the crisis. Sound familiar?
Obama studied under Cloward at Columbia, & went to work on Cloward’s pet project the Motor Voter Campaign.
Later, as a lawyer, Obama represented ACORN in a lawsuit against an Illinois bank to force them to give mortgages to people who could not pay for them.
When the junior senator got to Washington, he helped block efforts to regulate Fanny Mae to deal with their exploding stock of sub-prime mortgages which threatened to wreck the economy.
You cannot understand Obama’s political career until you understand the Cloward-Piven strategy.
Hypogean commented:
spayandneuter
October 19th, 2009 | 8:15 am
I will save my sympathy and tears for all the animals that we can’t find homes for before the “health care industry”.
Suddenly everyone is talking about “sympathy” for insurance companies. That means the liberal propaganda is working. They’ve manipulated you into embracing your own destruction.
Me, I oppose the government “reform” because it’s going to make our lives worse. “Sympathy and tears” for insurance companies has nothing to do with it. I’m simply taking a cold, hard look at the facts and concluding that our quality of life will be diminished under what the president and Democrats are proposing.
In my case I’m not allowing the propagandists reframe the argument into whether or not we “feel sympathy” for the insurance companies.
Jean commented:
Bankrupting the country was the Marxist’s plan all along.
Martin commented:
I’m just asking you look at the highly regulated Federal Employee plan. They all play by the same rules and can’t use loopholes. Check it out.
They compete just fine.
This is how great this debate is right now….Senator Kyl doesn’t know if it is factually correct that people are dying due to lack of health insurance.
Martin commented:
Bankrupting the country was the Marxist’s plan all along. – And Osama’s – Nice job W.
aprilnovember811 commented:
Of course it’s going to collapse anyone with a brain can see it. This is the KENYAN’s PLAN.
Redwine commented:
Spot on, Kenneth. The Cloward-Piven strategy is precisely what’s a play here. The damage is happening so fast, in the backrooms of the WH.
Whatever Dear Leader said during the election campaign and in his current,interminable campaign, every single word is a carefully crafted lie. Pure propaganda.
The 2010 mid-term elections are too far away. He has all the time he needs right now to cause America irreparable damage.
What a nightmare.
Martin commented:
The sky is falling, the sky is falling. Don’t watch the news. Work your a$$ off. Spend time with your family. You won’t know the difference and you will be a lot less stressed.
Chisum commented:
This is how great this debate is right now….Senator Kyl doesn’t know if it is factually correct that people are dying due to lack of health insurance.
And Moron Martin doesn’t acknowledge all of the people dying in countries like the UK that have universal healthcare coverage.
.
Barry O. commented:
To the Insurance companies” No sh*t Sherlock! where ya been? Oh, trying to hammer out a deal in the backroom of the WH to be exempt?
It looks as though the Insurance industry is now realizing they will go under the bus and out of business despite any back room deal they made with obama and the administration. did you not see what happened to the debtors of the bailout auto industry? Looks like they finally realized that backroom deal with Zero is not worth the paper it’s written on
Pat the First commented:
Actually, depending how badly the Dems do in VA and NJ in about 2 weeks, B.O. could become a very early lame duck. Dems concerned about re-election in 2010 will start putting distance between them and the B.O. administration very fast if the GOP soundly defeats the Dems on 11/3.
Hypogean commented:
Martin
October 19th, 2009 | 9:22 am
The sky is falling, the sky is falling. Don’t watch the news. Work your a$$ off. Spend time with your family. You won’t know the difference and you will be a lot less stressed.
Yes, no point in worrying about the Democrats taking over our health care. They’ve done a brilliant job with everything so far, so just spend time with your family and everything will be all right. Have a beer. Eat a cheeseburger.
Martin commented:
There isn’t a point in worrying. We can’t do anything. All I hope is my costs go down and my company succeeds. Control your own destiny! Make your world smaller, control what you can. Dems/Repubs cannot be trusted anytime.
Solaratov commented:
They have increased profits 476% in the past 7 years – during really bad economic times and we are worried for them?Martin
October 19th, 2009 | 7:41 am
And where do you find that 476% number – besides in the leftist talking points handbook?
Back it up with a link to some proof.
The numbers that I’ve seen are substantially lower than that – though they are still (horror of horrors!) in the profit column.
And why do you consider profit to be a bad thing?
Have you ever tried to run a business on NO profits? They don’t last very long doing that.
The only good communist is a dead communist.
Solaratov commented:
Martin
October 19th, 2009 | 9:05 am
– Nice job W.
That BDS is gonna kill you, boy.
But then, your obamassiah’s policies will probably do it too.
As soosn as someone starts with the, “but, but, Booooosh.” crap. they fall instantly into the a$$hole catagory.
Why don’t you try to develop a brain, parrot, and try to think for yourself.
(And, no. We don’t want to hear your sad story about your insurance woes again. It’s bullsh*t.)
The only good communist is a dead communist.
Solaratov commented:
And Moron Martin doesn’t acknowledge all of the people dying in countries like the UK that have universal healthcare coverage.
Please, Chisum, don’t confuse the parrot with facts. You know it just gets all hysterical and starts gibbering about its own “insurance company blues”.
The parrot really believes that insurance and health care will be free and abundant under obama’s plan.
But then, he’s still waiting for his “stimulus” check to arrive by unicorn courier.
Martin commented:
Solaratov – you are making way too many assumptions. That I want free healthcare..never said it. I’m tired of spending 11,000 a year on it.
W. and the wars are the reason we have a deficit. Don’t know how else you think we got there. Oh, and his 6 years of non veto pork spending. I know you would like to forget about him and hate when I bring him up because love him…
The moron martin thing, comedic genius stuff right there. Gold. Golden.
Andreas K. commented:
Martin, the wars aren’t the reason. Look at the deficit. When did it skyrocket? Once the “stimulus” came. Before that it wasn’t so bad. But then the spending began. Spending money one doesn’t have. That doesn’t work. Never works, never has, never will. Or can you spend what you don’t have? Guess what happens when you do that. Try it. I dare you.
The system Obama is trying to bring to the US is in use in the UK, in Germany, in Austria and many other countries. And it’s not working there. Go there, live there and use only national healthcare. I dare you. Do it.
Why do you think people in those countries, those who can afford it, are flocking to private insurances? Because the nationalized sytem is broken.
Obama’s system WILL break. It can’t work, it never has, it never will.
Evil Otto commented:
you are making way too many assumptions. That I want free healthcare..never said it. I’m tired of spending 11,000 a year on it.
Reasoning with Martin on this is pointless… he’s spelled out clearly why he wants Obamacare. It will save him a lot of money. In a way, he’s like that lady who cheered the election of Obama because she thought she wasn’t going to have to worry about her car payment or rent any more. We’re dealing with someone with a “gimmee” mentality who is an economic illiterate.
Martin is “tired” of spending $11K a year. And the fact that any savings he gets will have to come from the pockets of someone else doesn’t bother him. Government doesn’t make things cheaper… it just takes from one and gives to another, making things SEEM cheaper to the ones being subsidized. To the ones paying the difference, things get more expensive. If Martin pays only, say, $6000 a year, that $5000 has to be taken from taxpayers. In reality, government drives up real costs, so the cost to the taxpayers will be much more than $5K.
So, really, it’s people like him who are responsible for the deficit.