Tweet
This weekend, Anthem Blue Cross in California announced that their rates would go up as high as 39% in the next year. Up until a few months ago, when I got on my wife’s health insurance, this was my carrier. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wants answers, but in a general sense there’s not a lot she can do. Costs are rising at a rate where insurance companies feel the need to jack up their policy premiums to maintain their profits. And without any check on that, such rate hikes will continue.
So will this:
Insurers, drugmakers and hospitals will likely slash costs and merge companies to maneuver through a U.S. health-care landscape marked by rising medical expenses and the loss of millions of potential paying customers.
With Congress’ sweeping overhaul of the health system stalled, industry will seek its own answers to a push by government and the private sector to rein in costs, said Curtis Lane, senior managing director at MTS Health Partners, a New York-based equity fund. An aging U.S. population will spur demand for services and, at the same time, boost pressure to control spending, he said.
One solution will be increased consolidation, with companies led by WellPoint Inc., the biggest U.S. insurer by enrollment, and Community Health Systems Inc., the largest publicly traded hospital chain, scooping up rivals unable to “spread rising costs across fewer customers,” said Paul Keckley, of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.
Increasingly, out-of-work and older Americans are becoming eligible for public programs, reducing the profit pool for private insurers. They can only survive through market consolidation and continued subsidies like Medicare Advantage. Ironically, this consolidation will probably lead to major cost-cutting and putting thousands more out of work, making them unable to be eligible for employer health care, too.
You can argue about the health care landscape if we instituted this reform or that reform. There’s no argument about how dangerous and cruel the landscape will be under the status quo.
32 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About FDL News Desk
David –
Just wanted to give you a shout-out for your great work on a variety of subjects here. You make a great contribution to FDL, and to informing the electorate that visits here. Thanks.
Thank you so much for highlighting this merger story, David. I was beginning to think no one had noticed it. Corporate America has picked up on what Washington wouldn’t do and will now do their best to turn it all to their advantage.
Dayum! It’s almost like they’re taunting the American people, daring us to do something about it. They must be really confident HCR will fail. The Dems are all bought and paid for evidently.
Just what we really need: more companies that are Too Big to Fail, and too big to be broken up or stopped from merging.
Liebercare will not prevent consolidation. It will probably accelerate it. There may be some weak price controls but in general I am unexcited about this bill.
But look who IS demanding that this bill get passed:
-Pharma
-Hospitals
There are two stories in the NYT about how these guys are FREAKING OUT that the bill might not pass and they will not get the millions of new paying customers they were banking on. It’s a little bit ironic, don’t you think?
Too big to fail in health might well mean single payer.
The question of the day.
Can the USA call it self a humane and modern society? No
What humane and modern society on the planet earth would let people rob and rape SICK people to death? Only the USA
The idea of making money off of sick people? is sick and idiotic.
If you listen to Obama and Rahm they will tell you that for profit insurance companies need to be SAVED. WHY? (thus the need for the individual mandate without a public option)
Why don’t Obama tell the citizens of the USA the truth! With the death of capitalism as we know it, the illusion that was the american dream is dying rapidly.
It does not take a rocket science to figure out that all great nations have a very strong mfg sector. Real super powers always export more than they import.
The Democratic Party is definitely the less corrupted of the two-wings of the American Corporate Party. Obama’s base busted their butts & pocket books to get him elected & he turns out to be an eloquent, corporate owned politician. The only change I can believe in now is the party’s name on the K-Street checks is “Democratic Party”. Can’t wait for that first DNC letter after the Repugs take the House: “Contribute today to help us take the House back. We can’t succeed without a Democratic president & Congress.”
this is debatable, but in a way they are worse to the extent they are able to credibly appear as an opposition, thus diverting away the efforts of people of good will, tricking them into voting against their interests, voting for the candidate from Goldman, Sacks, Obama’s largest private donor.
unfettered rate hikes like these will, in the end, hasten the adoption of a Single Payer solution, but the Democratic Party and ‘progressive’ enablers and apologists like HCAN will have to be out of the way before that will happen.
watertiger is upstairs!
Late Night: Sarah Palin, Eleventy-Dimensional “Go Fish” Player!
-Pharma
-Hospitals
Add Rachel Maddow. She’s bonkers for it.
I don’t buy this. It doesn’t add up the way it pretends to. I’m surprised at seeing it here.
Insurers, drugmakers and hospitals will likely slash costs and merge companies to maneuver through a U.S. health-care landscape marked by rising medical expenses and the loss of millions of potential paying customers.”
David, I just can’t buy into ANY of that first sentemce . . .
1) NO one is going to slash costs (for the consumer). Perhaps it means the providers of ins and srvcs will slash OPS costs? I don’t know, it’s not spelled out. But NO one is cutting costs to the users.
2) Merge companies means further consolidation and less choice for consumers. Less competition, too. Bad.
So, I’d agree that costs to consumers will escalate out of sight, rapidly.
I’d agree that mergers will occur.
I state that coverage and services will be slashed, for higher premiums, to consumers of insurance coverage.
I agree the loss of the mandate shoots a big hole in the profit sheets of ins/bigmed/PhArma.
I state that more and more people will lose ANY coverage, and that denial of care will one way or another rise rapidly . . . denial of coverage AND care, that is.
In general, I find Bloomberg’s article to be very misleading and misinforming on a number of points, while alluding to a reality only in partial means.
I can’t put a finger on it, other than the article quotes invester funds folks. But there’s something disingenuous about it all, despite some of it being pretty obviously true.
Bottom line, without HCR and a PO at minimum, the corporate interests of priv ins and big med and PhARMA will run unfettered for their own good and at the loss of the general public.
Fewer people covered will pay more for less.
While the rest of the general masses have nothing, and die, more and sooner.
It’s a fail, for the private industry, worse than real reform which would have at LEAST kept them some customers even if at lower profits.
And because it IS a fail, and because the private insurers and big med and likely PhARMA also, ALL over appreciated their consolidated gains over the past three decades when HMO Models were king (yielding phantom holdings just like the bonds markets, just like housing, etc.), because the value of all the private insurers, big med and PhARMA are based on phony paper of good will overvaluing . . .
I smell a HUGE transfer of wealth upwards, somehow, before this house of cards collapses fully in the very near future, as bad as the banking/investment firms did . . . right now, we’re just watching the kabuki play out to neuter reform and prime the general public for the carnage . . .
It’s just a guess, but it’s all I got to make sense out of all the disinformation, misinformation, and maneuverings and machinations across the board I see from corporate interests to political interests.
And let me echo what someone above offered . . . thanks for all the incredible indepth insights you share with us day after day after topic after issue . . . . I am always amazed at your newsman’s level of engagement, breadth of engagement, and ability to bring so much that’s so varied to our eyes every day.
I bow to your wow, hoss. And I’m an old school ‘wish I was a newsman’ with some serious hostility about what’s considered to be news reporting and informing anymore since dereg of media beginning under Reagan.
You hold the flame high, hoss . . . . .
*bows*
Yep, there’s the upward transfer of wealth coming next, out of our pockets, bled dry to date.
Nicely put, and simply. Thanks.
They are all over leveraged, from consolidated ‘goodwill’ over valuing, they are broke and dying on the vine.
Ergo, a new Too Big To Fail being born in front of us, daily.
Not hardly, please see Stimulus Package, TARP, and more.
Hoss, this all started and was WELL predictable in CA when Reagan was governor, and when he took the Presidency in HIS 8 years in the 80′s . . . . down hill for CA since what, ’72? For the nation, since ’80.
Where ya been?
“The Democratic Party is definitely the less corrupted of the two-wings of the American Corporate Party.”
Guffaw!
Next!!!!!!!
“. . . unfettered rate hikes like these will, in the end, hasten the adoption of a Single Payer solution, but the Democratic Party and ‘progressive’ enablers and apologists like HCAN will have to be out of the way before that will happen.”
We’re talking total system failure Spork, before any of this changes. At that point, single payer won’t matter. What WILL matter is where your medical might come from. Any of it. If there IS any to be had.
If your neighbor(s) are nurses, doctors, or have ANY care potential at all (vets, dentists) then get to know them and make sure you got some chickens, or vegetables, to trade to them for care . . *G*
Why do Hospitals and Pharma need this HCR scam bill to pass.
Can you say BABY BOOMERS.
The BABY BOOMERS are going to bankrupt Hospitals and Pharma, How you say?
Baby Boomers have some of the best insurance that money can buy, and they are going to demand the best health care that money can buy. However, there is one BIG PROBLEM, hospitals and Pharma did not invest or plan well for the future demand of the BABY BOOM generation.
One huge problem, no one wants to talk about is death of the middle class that was suppose to follow the Baby Boom middle class to help pay for Baby Boomers golden years.
Something that has never happen in the USA is happening right now, the kids of the baby boomers are going to make less money than mom and dad. Which will hurt and drive down the profit margins of Insurance Companies, Hospitals, Pharma like never before.
All health care companies are going to have to start paying out a lot more than they take in. Simply put Insurance Companies, Hospitals, Pharma, Account Payables are going to SKY ROCKET!!! and the amount of Account Receivables for profit Insurance Companies, Hospitals, Pharma are going to drop like a rock.
The USA govt knows that the cost of Meidcare, Medicade, Social Security, is going to absorb over 50% of the budget. Guess what tax revenues are going to do? Drop Like a rock.
The STUPID elite did not consider or calculate what would happen if you killed the USA middle class.
Buying all those cheap products, made with cheap labor, from China was not a good idea. Especially when you have a huge ACCOUNT PAYABLE about to come due call the BABY BOOMERS.
Well, BMull is right about about PhARMA and Hospitals (delivery care big med) wanting Senate Bill passed.
I’m not sure why he didn’t include private insurers . . . THEY surely want a mandate legislated.
So, I guess I’m missing what your point is????
Bingo, and proof positive that corporate feudalism don’t care . . . about the general public it was built upon.
They first swell the upward flow of money to the 1%, then move it out of country, and look for other plum markets to take down, out, and fleece.
It happened before WW1, with European money, shifted to NY and the USA. Then again WW2, for MORE money to USA.
Now, it’s time to fleece upwards all that can be fleeced, and move it elsewhere, and set up shop again for a hundred years . . . . if any of this planet lasts that long.
of course the premiums are going up. all those politians don’t come cheep, doncha know.
politicians
Remember, Medicare Advantage is an HMO; like most HMOs, their profits are predicated on providing minimal care. Folks, please note: most hospice are HMO’s and they make their profits the same way; providing minimal care; that is why there are so many of them as they are very profitable.
Seems to me very clear that a single payer system is the only rational alternative.
One final note: physicians in the US expect to make far more money than their European counter-parts.
The health insurance cartel is objectively an economic rapist. The US government approaches the topic of reform by giving us the choice of a change from the status quo to an even worse situation where the IRS is knocking our doors even aren’t turning our money over to the health insurance cartel.
The situation is hopeless. From the standpoint of the government supposedly acting in ways that greatly benefit most people, the US is ungovernable.
There is no economic rationale for this rate increase. They are playing chicken with the pols.
After the recent right-wing U.S. Supreme Court decision by five fascist justices, in which they ruled that a corporation is a living, breathing human being with First Amendment rights, if I were a corporation I’d be thinking, too, about merging with other related corporations, greatly expanding the available corporate funds that could be used to buy even more corporate-friendly politicians while running attack ads against non-corporate-friendly political candidates, because, you know, no one noticed how “too big to fail” mega-corporations almost destroyed America.
The only answer directly to Blue Cross is SB810, its already past one hurdle again, its coming up next for hearings – http://www.californiaonecare.org/
This is the 3rd time we have gotten this far and will again get all the way to the Governors deck and he better sign it or we should start a campaign to push him out of office before the next election, we can’t afford to wait any longer.
Soon, the whole country will be on Medicaid. The American health care syndicate is a parasite that will die with its victim.
In PA, Blue Cross simply dumped everyone on their “Personal Choice” plan. In order to reduce the risk of medical bankruptcy due to a catastrophe, many small business individuals have paid the ridiculous premiums. Now, they have turned this into junk insurance with $5000 deductibles for all, after I have paid 50,000 with almost no use.
As the middle class is transferred to junk insurance many more people will die because they skipped medical advice and screenings. The people who got sick before the plans are dropped, eventually go bankrupt, and are then transferred to the government with serious health problems.
People still need to pay the killer companies outrageous premiums in case of a catastrophe, but how are the lower middle class people going to pay for all other expenses out of pocket? (Paying the premiums stretched me to the limit.)
I suspect that the under-insured have a slightly higher mortality rate than the 45,000 uninsured, but the data is in the hands of insurance companies. Meanwhile insurance company profits and stocks are skyrocketing. Many millions of Americans are quietly being dumped in with the first 100 million Americans, who live daily without health care security!
That’s what I say.
“The situation is hopeless. From the standpoint of the government supposedly acting in ways that greatly benefit most people, the US is ungovernable.”
I think this statement defines how many of us feel right now. True democracy is not hopeless and ungovernable. Our government has turned into an uncontrollable monster where the peoples voices are swept under a rug for cash. We all know this is true.. So what are WE going to do about it? We can vote and sign petitions all day but it will get us no where as proven with what happened to our HCR bill. The government needs an ultimatum, End corporate control in our government and fix how our people are heard period, and leave how to do that to the people not politicians… No bargaining no bribes no more BS. Or we do what our American founders knew we might one day face and take what is rightfully ours back forcefully. We are being oppressed and raped by corporations partnered with our own government.
Thomas Jefferson
” When the people fear their government this is tyranny. When the government fears the people this is liberty.”