You know, with all the major insurance companies---Aetna, Cigna, etc.---announcing HUGE premium

[Atticus]

increases in an effort to game the system and run up profits before the restrictions of the Health Care bill kick in in 2014, you would THINK that even the densest among us would start asking "Just why in the hell do we need these greedy corporate middlemen?"

Maybe some of the Democrats who refused to even allow single payer to be DISCUSSED will compare the chicanery and greed we STILL have arrayed against the average citizen with what we COULD have had.

Na-a-a-h!!!

[rocktivity]

1. Keith Olbermann's guest just finished saying as much

If they're not careful, Obama might decide to make the punishment fit the crime and put them out of business!

:headbang:
rocktivity

[RC]

2. One can hope.

[dflprincess]

9. Don't hold your breath n/t

[RKP5637]

3. This has been my concern too... we kept greedy middlemen in the equation,

yet many Americans seem to like paying the greedy middlemen so they make exorbitant obscene profits. Most of what goes on anymore makes absolutely no sense to me. I would have thought the Public Option would have been a major piece of the equation at minimal.

I think a good portion of the citizenry of this country is severely misinformed about many things anymore. Basically many of the most in need of help appeared to support the major insurance companies and fell hook line and sinker for the propaganda spewed by the major insurance companies.

I have always felt the same, "you would THINK that even the densest among us would start asking 'Just why in the hell do we need these greedy corporate middlemen?'"

The only conclusion I reach is this is now USA, Inc., bought and run by corporate America, by the corporations, for the corporations, not we the people.

[brentspeak]

4. It's just like the credit card legislation

Give the corporations plenty of window-time before the new laws become effective to rape and pillage the American people to their hearts' content. And giving the insurance companies four whole years to raise premiums will backfire on the Democrats; the public will quickly sour on the entire "reform" when they see how they got hung out to dry.

[RKP5637]

5. Good analysis IMO!!! n/t

[L0oniX]

12. Exactly ...and that's when they planned to do the same in the event of a HCR bill.

I have no doubt what so ever. Nothing will stop these sociopaths! What gets me is ...who the hell do they think can afford those jacked out premiums? I mean how many of us are middle class yet? IMO by the time all this financial crisis runs its course and the remainder of our good jobs go over seas, no one will be middle class anymore. WTH will be able to pay those premiums?

:wtf:

[freddie mertz]

15. Credit Card legislation forced me to cut mine up.

I just could not afford the rate increases forced on me by the "Reform."

Looks like this will be phase two.

I hope not.

[Captain Hilts]

6. So long as what they must spend on actual healthcare is determined by percentages, they've no

motivation to hold prices down.

It's like the big, wet kiss that PhRMA got with the prescription drug plan.

[HughMoran]

7. Mass rejected all but one of the requested healthcare insurance increases

At least one state is not going to allow the criminals to jack up their rates.

[hedgehog]

8. OK - you're a major corporation. At what point do you tell

the health insurance companies to take a hike, give your employees a raise and tell them to buy their insurance on the exchange?

[SocialistLez]

18. They have an incentive to do that now

They could have done that BEFORE the health care law.

http://socialistworker.org/2009/08/28/on-strike-for-health-care-justice

^I heard about that outside of Socialistworker.org but that was the first link I could find.

[notesdev]

10. It's not an attempt to "game" the system

It's an attempt to stay in business, HCR was a death sentence for the insurers.

The endgame, as far as I can figure, is that all insurers will end up as GSEs.

[Atticus]

11. How do you figure that HCR "was a death sentence for the insurers"?

I would like that to be true, but doubt that that will happen without further legislation.

[notesdev]

14. There's no reason for healthy people to keep coverage

they can get it when they need it... in the meantime they can pocket the money. Even if they have to pay a fine for not being insured, it will be dirt cheap compared to insurance rates, and as those rates rise dramatically it becomes more and more of a no-brainer decision for someone who is not already sick. But the insurers depend on the healthy people to cover the losses of paying for the sick - without them there is no viable business model. Hence the exclusions for pre-existing conditions - if they didn't exclude, they couldn't keep the healthy people in the system. Now that they can't exclude, all healthy people will figure out soon enough that there is no reason to maintain insurance.

[SocialistLez]

19. The penalties just might rise

I was reading the statewide business magazine and they were talking about health insurance reform.

One of the health insurance CEOs they interviewed said the fines might have to be "adjusted" to get more healthy people into the pool.

I DOUBT the fines will go up but considering the corporate ownership of Congress, it just might happen.

[flyarm]

16. keep dreaming..and in your last dream ..dream yourself totally screwed! Then wake up!!

your last dream with be the truth!

[ellenfl]

13. i still think he's giving them enough rope to hang themselves.

medicare-for-all here we come. the more people lose their private insurance because they can no longer afford it, the sooner we get the public option. republicans will have to get on board as their constituents begin getting priced out of their insurance.

ellen fl

[flyarm]

17. the only ones roped are those that believed they were getting Health and Care..it was rope a dope! e

[alfredo]

20. Let em give us the shaft, then we should push for punitive

measures against us. We need to ask why do insurance companies exist. They don't cure the sick, they don't comfort the dying. All they do is skim 30% off the top. Doctors and hospitals then have to raise their prices to make up for what the insurance companies take.

Obama needs to say it loud and clear, mess with us and the next reform will be with a robust public option. Mess with us another time and it will be single payer.

[kenny blankenship]

21. You sound like somebody who would object to Social Security being plowed into the stock market

Harrrumph.

[amborin]

22. K&R