General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWas it Predictable that Insurance Companies would behave a Certain Way?
I am really sick of the whole "it's the insurance companies!!11!" thing.
Yeah, nobody could have possibly anticipated that insurers would act one way or another.
If the insurers were going to do some dreadful thing or another then one might have assumed that the largest reform/regulation of private health insurance since forever might have addressed whatever the terrible thing is.
If the ACA did not require insurers to cover pre-existing conditions, would they?
That's why they are required to.
See how that works?
It is all-caps STUPID to whine about how some damn thing or another is the fault of the insurers. Yeah... as opposed to what? The insurers would kill your kid if there was a nickel in it. Duh.
The insurers are EVIL. They were evil in 2008. They are Evil in 2013. They will be evil as long as they exist. So what is the point in blaming them for something that anyone could have predicted they would do? Will they apologize? See the error of their ways and straighten up?
A failure or regulation is a failure of regulation is a failure of regulation is a failure of regulation.
If there is no problem then say there is no problem. Maybe there is no problem.
If, however, there is a problem then saying, "It's the insurance companies doing it," is an observation of a natural phenomenon, not an explanation of the blamelessness of policy.
If the ACA was meant to build an impregnable fence keeping out lions and promised "you will never be eaten by a lion" and then lions came in holes in the fence and ate people it would be moronic to blast the twitter-sphere with, "It's the lions that are doing this!"
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)Pretzel_Warrior
(8,361 posts)the insurance companies are cancelling plans. so what? there are other plans out there? if someone is really in dire straits financially, they can get subsidies.
How much do you spend to put gas in your car every year? How much do you spend for rent on your house? Insurance for your car? Food? Yeah, stuff costs money. And the ONLY way we get out of the old broken paradigm of health care is to get people proper levels of health care coverage.
The regulation is doing its job and some people don't like it. Well, guess what? A lot of people DO like it and A WHOLE HELL OF A LOT MORE are unaffected by this week's "hair on fire" gargabe about the individual insunrance market.
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)the government for not regulating against such activity.
Incitatus
(5,317 posts)cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)All of this was well understood long ago.
But today we have a torrent of pointless observations that it is the insurance companies canceling policies, resulting in Obama's promise for the ACA not being 100% true, which is an inane argument.
Yes, it is the insurers canceling policies. Which addresses nothing and answers nothing, and wishing won't make it go away.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)Evidently, we have discovered some "holes" in the ACA. Ultimately, I agree with you that it's useless for us to blame insurance companies for holes in the law. What, exactly do you propose to do to plug these holes?
On a separate issue, I have to take issue with your analogy. The ACA is not a fence designed to keep out insurers. Quite the contrary. The ACA is a partnership of government and insurance companies. It's not designed to keep them out. It is designed to bring them in, keep them alive, and keep them profitable. Complaining that the ACA doesn't keep insurance companies out makes less sense than arguing, once again, that insurance companies are evil.
-Laelth
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)But you probably already knew that.