What's a better HCR outcome for the insurance industry?

[rucky]

Poll question: What's a better HCR outcome for the insurance industry?

[Mike 03]

1. I voted for "Nothing Gets Passed" but probably should have voted for

"Either," which I imagine is the best answer.

[ThomWV]

2. I'd take no change over any change, but we're fucked either way.

[RedCloud]

3. I broke the tie. Where's my health insurance lobbyist kickback fee?

[xchrom]

4. Depends on your level of faith in 'fixes'

And who will do the 'fixing'.

Nothing is written in stone -- a prolonged period of Repuke rule
will see democratic mouths FULL of Ashes.

All because we Dicked around with Insurance reform rather than
Health care reform.

[laughingliberal]

5. The Mandate w/o any public option and without losing their anti-trust exemption

and allowed to sell across state lines with community ratings model that allows....

Never mind. The Senate bill passing without changes is the best of all worlds for the insurance industry.

[kenny blankenship]

6. Once the Insurance Racket Guaranteed Profitability Act passes

the US govt. and taxpayer are on the hook for keeping insurance companies in good health, profit-wise, FOREVERMORE. And guess what suckers? They require more profits every year to stay healthy.

Why "on the hook" you ask? Because you will have made them officially "our healthcare system". If they manage somehow--like the banksters-- to get into trouble with declining share values and cash flow problems, YOU will bail them out, Yes you will because "they're our SYSTEM!" and our system will be in "crisis". "The health and lives of millions of Americans are at stake!" you'll be told. You will pay higher taxes and premiums to make them whole again, or the rolls of insured will be slashed and the unlucky will face death and pain.

[laughingliberal]

9. We're bailing them out with this bill, already

They are hemorrhaging customers and hoping we get this done before the public gets wise that this is a secret bailout of the industry. Otherwise, you are 100% correct. Those who think if this bill passes as is, it can be 'fixed' are blind to the ramifications. The inability of Americans to detect unintended consequences is infinite.

[kenny blankenship]

11. I get it. They are facing the boomer migration to Medicare. The Boomerdammerung.

I was surprised (and delighted!) to learn from that recently released insurance study, which showed a 56% increase in profits for major insurance co.s last year, that the big factor in the growth of their profits was nominally public programs like SCHIP and Medicaid that have been farmed out to the private sector.

That pointed out the way, no doubt! A pilot program for crony capitalist parasitism.

The Insurance Racket Guaranteed Profitability Act of 2010 isn't something completely new under the Sun, but rather it will expand massively and institutionally on the predatory gravy trains that have already been launched. It will be much much larger than anything beforee, and of course now there is coercion involved: a literally captive market.

100% premeditated Screwjob.

[slipslidingaway]

7. Mandate without public option - they need customers ...

From June...

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/07/business/fi-healthcare7

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6083122&mesg_id=6083122


...But this time, it turns out, the health insurance industry has good reason to support at least some change: It needs it. Private health insurance faces a bleak future if the proposal they champion most vigorously -- a requirement that everyone buy medical coverage -- is not adopted.

...Insurers do not embrace all of the healthcare restructuring proposals. But they are fighting hard for a purchase requirement, sweetened with taxpayer-funded subsidies for customers who can't afford to buy it on their own, and enforced with fines.


...The industry's real trouble begins in 2011, when 79 million baby boomers begin turning 65. Health insurers stand to lose a huge slice of their commercially insured enrollment (estimated at 162 million to 172 million people) over the next two decades to Medicare, the government-funded health insurance program for seniors..."


For insurers, getting "run over" would be the adoption of a so-called single-payer plan, where the government pays all medical bills. Such a plan would wreak havoc on the private insurance market, and is widely viewed as politically unfeasible this year. So the best way for the industry to preserve the private insurance market -- and derail the campaign for a single-payer system -- may be to go along with more palatable proposals on the table now, said Jeffrey Miles, a healthcare analyst and president of the Miles Organization, a Los Angeles insurance brokerage firm..."

[Edweird]

8. The Senate bill.

[upi402]

10. forced profit contribution

what next, paupers' prison?

[slipslidingaway]

12. kick nt

[rucky]

13. kick

[slipslidingaway]

14. kick nt