9 Insurers Exit Nebraska's Health Insurance Market

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/11/obamacare-effect-companies-exit-nebraskas-health-insurance-market/

Aetna, American Family Mutual Insurance, Humana, Independence American Insurance Company, Reserve National Insurance Company, Standard Security Life Insurance Company of New York, Companion Life Insurance and United Security Life and Health Insurance have all informed the state insurance department of their intent to stop selling health insurance to individuals - and in some cases - groups.

This will be the consequence everywhere as Obama and his cronies continue to price out the private insurers. Eventually you will be left with NO other option except for government healthcare. Then what will you do when they raise your rates or decrease the quality of your healthcare? Not a damn thing except bend over and take it.

 

Well, pre Obamacare, the HC insurance market was all sewn up by the insurance companies, in that it was a protected market. You can legally only have a HC policy from a company within your state, which neatly closed the free market off.

 

More fall out from the idiot obamacare bill forced on us by ONLY democrats.

 

pre Obamacare there were at LEAST 9 more major insurance carriers in Nebraska than there are now. That's 9 less choices. Thanks Obamacare.

 

I never even supported ObamaCare, and think it's a stupid system, but if they can't compete, who's fault is that?

If Mac can't compete with Microsoft, what should they do? Whine to the govt to change something - ex. provide 'affirmative action' for businesses.

Capitalism requires you to be able to be competitive, if you can't you don't deserve to be in business - that's the law of the jungle. Anything else isn't capitalism - just monopoly-ism.

 

They can't compete because they aren't getting, what amounts to essentially, free money like the government option will be receiving. The government option will be subsidized by taxpayer money. That means the procedure that costs the private insurer $200, it will only cost the government options insurance $100 because they're getting $100 in free, taxpayer money. Eventually the government option will take enough customers that it will cause the private insurers to raise their rates to stay in business... which in turn will cause them to lose more customers which will cause them to raise their rates and this cycle will continue until it is no longer worth it for them to stay in business.

At that point the ONLY option you will have is the government option. The government will have complete control over your healthcare. What will you do when they raise your rates or decrease the quality of your healthcare? You'll bend over and take it, that's what you'll do because you won't have another option.

If you think a monopoly on your healthcare is a bad thing, then you had better be completely against Obamacare because it is purposefully engineered to run it's competitors out of business and become a monopoly.

 

There's not enough information in that article to really make any assumptions as to why they're stopping services or closing down. Just more half-assed reporting by Fox done in such a way to lead you to believe something when only half the story is told.

 

Some of those companies explicitly blamed Obamacare as at least part of the reason they did so. If you think this wasn't about Obamacare... you probably think the massive amount of part-time jobs, the companies that are reducing full-time employees to part-time, and reducing their amount of employees to under 50 (if possible)... all has nothing to do with Obamacare too... in which case you're completely delusional.

 

No thanks private companies who are pissed that no longer get to (*)(*)(*)(*) over their customers so they decide to shut down instead. Oh well. There will be others companies to take their place. That's how capitalism works.

 

No they won't. That's the point. This is NOT capitalism. Providing a government option is in NO way, shape or form capitalism. Providing subsidies is a SOCIALIST construct. This has absolutely nothing to do with capitalism.

That's the point. There will not be another company come in and take their place because Obama and the government have created massive artificial barriers to entry which have made it prohibitively expensive for private insurers to start and stay in business.

 

This is not a government option. This is making people buy private health insurance, but prohibiting those private companies from denying coverage for people who have pre-existing conditions. Believe me, these companies have no problem paying for it, they just don't want to. A public option could have been better. It would have at least been non-profit.

 

So what? Some of them did, but there's no specifics except for one company as why and all it said to me was that company was not fit to exist if it thinks regulations would kill it, meaning it wasn't doing very good in the first place.

 

... profit is a GOOD thing. Profit provides incentive to become better. What incentive does a not-for profit have to improve their processes? They're going to get the same thing whether they improve or whether they become more efficient. What incentive does a not-for profit have to create new drugs, new surgeries, new equipment, etc etc? This is America, there's nothing wrong with profit... in fact it's beneficial for everyone.

- - - Updated - - -

Do you understand why people who have preexisting conditions CANNOT be allowed to get insurance for approximately the same price as someone who doesn't have preexisting conditions?

 

Profit at the expense of the customers' needs is not good. and that is what insurance companies do. They (*)(*)(*)(*) their customers to make more money.

Did you know that if your father had cancer, you then have a pre-existing family history of cancer, and without Obamacare, an insurance company did not have to cover you?

 

Boohoo..


It appears these health insurance suppliers can't handle the competition. They need to rethink their business practices to remain competitive.

 

Yeah, because it's a scam. Companies can insure for the same price. It's pay in/pay out. It's the same way taxes work. If I'm paying taxes, I don't expect all the benefit to go directly to me, it's to sustain programs run by the country. The same way people paying into insurance sustain the general operation of the business. You can all-caps me all day, but obviously the companies that closed down altogether were scamming, taking people that would more likely just pay them without them having to pay out. Would you support that with our taxes then? You pay taxes but get nothing for it for anyone? If they budget right and have a decent amount of customers, there is no need for them to close other than scamming, greed or both.

 

Then what stops the customer from saying... it's going to cost me $500 a month to keep insurance on myself, my wife and 3 kids. I make $40,000 a year. I have a bad back that goes out on me. My penalty would be $1390 a year if I choose to go uninsured. If I choose to insure us, it will be $6,000. I'm just going to pay the penalty.

Now... oh crap my back went out. Let's call up Obamacare and get insurance. Go to the doctor the next day... get treatment. As soon as I'm better... drop the insurance. Make it 4 or 5 months. Uh oh, my kid gets meningitis... call up Obamacare... get insurance, take the kid to the doctor. The kid gets better. Drop my insurance. Next year, my other kid gets diagnosed with leukemia. Call up Obamacare... sign up for insurance and pay for 9 months so my kid gets treatment and cancer goes into remission. Drop my insurance. 2 years later the kid has another cancer issue... call up and get my insurance again.

 

Pre-Obamacare the HC insurance companies had made sure that you were locked to a policy only available in your state. There was no free market, which is why your policies were far more expensive than the rest of the Western world.

 

We can all see them beating a path to Nebraska.

 

This assumes that ACA will, in fact, make your healthcare more costly and less effective. Do you have any supporting evidence for this? Private insurers and their venal, profit-motivated practises, along with absurdly high premiums are going to be priced out? Should I start celebrating now?

 

Profit is better for whom; the patient or the insurer? Explain how an insurer, with absolutely no motivation other than profit, and no interest in clinical care, is going to improve the quality of care which a patient receives. This is the fundamental problem with your inept system; the patient becomes a mere footnote. Profit is all that matters.

 

Let's take Nebraska for example... you had at LEAST 9 MORE choices for healthcare being part of Nebraska's insurance market. You now have 9 LESS available choices. You had MUCH more of a free market before.

 

Can you show me an example of two people who had insurance before, have already signed up for Obamacare and their insurance costs will be LESS? That is, without going from being able to provide for their OWN insurance to now having to depend upon subsidies and become leeches off of everybody else.

I can certainly show people whose costs will increase:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/20...nce-premium-increases-shock.html#.Ul6_SILD-fA
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/b...arp-rise-in-premiums.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapot...nsurance-premiums-by-99-for-men-62-for-women/
http://americanactionforum.org/rese...g-invincibles-under-the-aca-and-the-impending
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...are-overhaul-health-insurance-health-coverage
http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Health-insurance-shoppers-suffer-sticker-shock-4872701.php

There are hundreds more.

 

Profit is better for both. Let's take two examples of hospitals. One hospital is a for profit hospital, the other is a not-forprofit. The not-for profit has average processes, average to below-average prices and average quality employees. Why would they have any reason to improve their processes? Why would they have any incentive to improve pricing or employee quality? They have none because they're not profiting. Let's take the for profit enterprise. They want to make more money. The only way to make more money than that not-for profit hospital, is to improve your processes or improve pricing or employee quality. This improves the experience and quality of healthcare that your patients receive as well. You have to become BETTER than your competition if you do not want to be put out of business or if you want to improve your profit margin. Not for profit institutions have no incentive to become better because whether they provide below-average healthcare or superb healthcare, their bottom line will stay the same. This means the quality of healthcare and the experience patients receive will stay stagnant and improve very little if at all. This doesn't even speak on the benefits of having other for-profit hospitals who are competing for the same customers. In that scenario the experience for the patients AND the hospitals BOTH becomes much more enjoyable.

The same concept is true for insurers (and every other business). Profit increases competition. Competition increases the quality of the product or service while decreasing the price.

It is FAR better to have profit because profit drives competition and competition improves the experience of the customer.

 

Yet not a free market. To be clear, my HC policy covers me for the entire world, minus the USA. Why? Because my policy would triple if I included it. Ypu have not had a sensible HC in a very long time.