‘Socialist’ Obamacare has been good for capitalist health insurance companies
Remember how that ’socialist’ President Obama took over the health insurance industry? Remember how the new health care law was a ‘government takeover’ of one of the largest segments of the U.S. economy?
Well, that socialized, government takeover has worked out pretty well for the big for-profit health insurance companies. They are enjoying soaring profits, and their executives received hefty compensation packages last year. After the health care law passed, Aetna’s net income jumped 40 percent over the same period last year. From the LA Times :
The top executives at the nation’s five largest for-profit health insurance companies pulled in nearly $200 million in compensation last year — while their businesses prepared to hit ratepayers with double-digit premium increases, according to a new analysis conducted by healthcare activists.
The leaders of Cigna Corp., Humana Inc., UnitedHealth Group and WellPoint Inc. each in effect received raises in 2009, the report concluded, based on an analysis of company reports filed with the Security and Exchange Commission. . .
“Most families are struggling to hang on. Employers are struggling to stay in business. And these guys were giving themselves huge raises,” said Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now, a coalition of advocacy groups that prepared the report.
A spokeswoman for WellPoint said executives’ compensation reflects their effort to improve care and hit corporate goals. Representatives of the other four insurers either declined to comment Tuesday on the report or did not respond to questions.
The executive packages were calculated by adding base salaries, bonuses, stock awards and other compensation reported on company financial statements. It did not include the value of exercised stock options.
Last year was highly profitable for most of the country’s big publicly traded insurers. In the first two quarters of this year, profits for many insurers have continued to soar more than 20%.
Aetna’s net income jumped more than 40% in the second quarter of 2010 compared with a year earlier. Indianapolis-based WellPoint recorded a 51% increase in its profit in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2009.
At the same time, the companies have sought major premium hikes. In Rhode Island, UnitedHealth of Minnetonka, Minn., this spring sought increases of up to 15.5%. In Utah, some customers of Humana of Louisville, Ky., reported increases of 29%.
Health insurance companies and their Republican defenders continue to claim that health care reform has caused health insurance premiums to rise. That’s nonsense, of course. As the report makes clear, premiums were rising before the law passed. They’d been rising for the last decade. In fact, outrageous increases in premiums helped to shore up sagging support for the reform among Democrats in Congress.
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555 comments Add your comment
Peadawg
August 11th, 2010
8:11 am
“As the report makes clear, premiums were rising before the law passed.”
And they will continue to rise even though Obama said they would not. How are insurance companies going to cover 30 million more people without raising premiums on everyone? Anyone? Obama flat out lied on this one.
Alatsea
August 11th, 2010
8:12 am
Why are they not allowed to make a profit?
Alatsea
August 11th, 2010
8:16 am
The increase has already begun. So hold on tight or bend over and kiss it good-bye.
CT the health plan is socialist. No if ands or buts.
Alatsea
August 11th, 2010
8:17 am
Peadawg
Your posts never fail to put a smile on my face.
Peadawg
August 11th, 2010
8:20 am
“Your posts never fail to put a smile on my face.”
I don’t know if that’s sarcastic or not…but I’ve asked that question before on here and nobody’s given me a legit answer.
karnes
August 11th, 2010
8:21 am
Hilarious how the kooks tout a “positive” years before the Nazi healthcare system officially begins. Let’s go over this elementary situation one more time little Cindy, ok? When one company has to make a profit to survive, and it’s competition does not, who is going to win in the long run?
How is your Nazi salute coming along? Are you still practicing it every morning?
jim
August 11th, 2010
8:22 am
Amazing how CT supports something that will not only literally kill millions of elderly Americans, but will also put millions more out of work. CT truly hates the Unite States. Sad.
Bubba
August 11th, 2010
8:22 am
Unless I’m mistaken, the federal mandates for health insurance don’t take effect until 2014, so Obamacare woulds not yet have much effect on insurance company profits one way or the other. Certainly not on 2009 profits or first-quarter 2010. Am I missing something here?
StJ
August 11th, 2010
8:23 am
The insurance companies are getting what they can get in the next 3 years before ObamaCare puts them out of business. After that, welcome to the single-payer, socialist system. (Yes I know single-payer isn’t “officially” in the law that was passed, but after you run everyone else out of town, health care will be a de facto single-payer system. That’s why they didn’t push the single-payer issue too hard in the debate over the bill.)
Van Jones
August 11th, 2010
8:27 am
It’s a good thing you’re pretty…
Jimmy62
August 11th, 2010
8:28 am
So not only is it not helping normal folks, but it is helping the insurance companies (at least in the short term, till the real stuff kicks in well after the next Presidential election, convenient how that works out…). Sure seems like you should be all up in arms against this, Cynthia. But it’s Obama, so I guess you’ll support him to the detriment of everyone.
neo-Carlinist
August 11th, 2010
8:28 am
CT, did not know Obama is in bed with Big Insurance? again, let’s look at it this way: take one of your rants about the “war on terrorism” and the DoD/Military-Industrial Complex. Every time you see the word “war” or “terrorism” replace it with “war on skyrocketing healthcare costs” or “healthcare reform”. Every time you see Military-Industrial Complex, replace it with “Medical-Insurance Complex” (which includes Big Pharm, of course). you will find essentially the same business model, which has the government faciltating or brokering for the large corporate business interests that OWN IT. healthcare needs to be “reformed” at the insurance company level, and Obama gave the insurance companies what they wanted. I guess he honored his promise; to big insurance/big healthcare. this, as much as anything shows Obama’s true colors as a deal-brokering, corporate-owned politician. Oh, and did you see the Newsweek piece about up to 10,000 mercenaries (security forced)in Iraq, as we “draw down” U.S. troop levels? again, this would be a great plan, were the Iraqis picking up the six figure contracts. so, not only are we the People being forced to pay for healthcare, we’re being forced to pay for the internal security of Iraq.
Jose
August 11th, 2010
8:29 am
Tuck, you are a complete liberal slobbering mess. Premiums are going up as we speak because insurance companies are getting ready for all the “great” stuff that obamacare is going to give us. What it is going to give us is a pain in the butt to all those covered by health insurance and a bigger pain in the butt to the doctors that have to deal with it. My spouse is in the healthcare business and deals with this everyday. Her company is telling all their employees that 2013 is going to be the biggest mess they have ever dealt with and right now they are not sure how they will deal with it. In the meantime, they are trying to sell the company so that the current leadership can get far away from the coming hell. And by the way, quit referrencing the LA Times and the NY Times to make your points. They have the same agenda as you and the same credibility.
granny godzilla
August 11th, 2010
8:29 am
AND it’s been a boost to Medicare…
First, Medicare’s trustees today confirmed that because of the ACA, the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is now expected to remain solvent until 2029, 12 years longer than under earlier projections, and spending on Medicare Part B as a share of GDP over the next 75 years is down 23 percent relative to the costs projected in the 2009 report. The improvement is due largely to the reductions made by the ACA in the annual “market basket” updates to hospitals and other non-physician providers (productivity “adjustments” that by and large were agreed to by the affected industries), lower payments to Medicare Advantage plans, and increased tax revenue. The Wall Street Journal’s health blog notes the report comes with a caveat: the trustees had to assume that Medicare will continue to pay hospitals and other providers under the reduced rates, which may be politically difficult to sustain over time. And the improvement in the Part B (physician spending) side doesn’t take into account the costs that would be associated with repealing Medicare’s sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula.
Second, the ACA helps Medicare because it adds more benefits, at little or no cost to seniors. Effective on January 1, Medicare will eliminate deductibles and co-payments for most preventive and screening services, and pay for an annual “well” physician examination. Starting this year the ACA begins to phase out the Medicare Part D “doughnut hole” until it disappears in 2012.
Third, the ACA will promote development and pilot-testing of new models of payment and delivery to improve payments for primary care, promote patient-centered care through medical homes, reduce preventable hospital admissions, and create incentives for physicians, hospitals, and other providers to deliver better care, more efficiently. For the most part, the Medicare trustees’ did not include the potential savings from these changes in its report.
August 9th, 2010 by BobDoherty in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News,
Alatsea
August 11th, 2010
8:30 am
Peadawg
I don’t know if that’s sarcastic or not…but I’ve asked that question before on here and nobody’s given me a legit answer
No sarcasm, If sides were drawn I would be on your side
godless heathen
August 11th, 2010
8:31 am
The goal is total government control of health-care. That wasn’t achieved in Stage 1, the libs could barely get the watered down version of what they wanted passed. But the camel’s nose is under the tent.
Next step will be to amp up the rhetoric against evil Insurance companies (see Cynthia Tucker above).
Ike Hunt figure it out
August 11th, 2010
8:31 am
I feel the same way about going to concerts. I mean these people make thousands per show and I have to pay $50, $100, $200 dollars or more for a show. I mean what a rip off. I say nobody should make profits. Thats how America should be. Nobody makes money. It aint right, It aint right
Jose
August 11th, 2010
8:31 am
Van Jones, that picture is old. Tuck has has since put on a lot of war scars on her face fighting for her man everyday. That is a full time job you know.
Jose
August 11th, 2010
8:33 am
Ike Hunt, you are preaching right out of the Granny G and Tuck hymm book.
Alatsea
August 11th, 2010
8:35 am
Ike Hunt
Amen
barking frog
August 11th, 2010
8:37 am
Insurance companies administer the Medicare
program and are compensated well for it. They
will administer all future medical insurance,
single payer or not. They will simply not have
to sell because the government will require us
to buy.
lynn ehrlicher
August 11th, 2010
8:37 am
The republicans and their tea party, with the help of “centrist” democrats, fought tooth and nail against the public option, which would have provided some competition for these companies and lowered health care costs for everyone. The result of having the public option go down in flames along with the mandate that everyone purchase health insurance results in corporate profits skyrocketing, carrying along with it CEO bonuses. Thanks everyone who opposed healthcare reform!
Ayn Rand was right
August 11th, 2010
8:39 am
“Socialist Obama” said he was taking “on” the insurance companies because we needed to improve healthcare. Instead he took in the insurance companies and the rest of us “comrades” are left out in the cold to “eat cake” while they live it up on our backs. Fantastic!
Eric Pearson
August 11th, 2010
8:41 am
Peabrain puts a smile on my face too, but for a different reason.
barking frog
August 11th, 2010
8:42 am
Peadawg, Insurance companies will cover 30 million more
people without raising premiums by charging them the same
premium as everyone else.
Peadawg
August 11th, 2010
8:42 am
Eric Pearson, instead of answering my question…you start w/ the name calling. Very cute!
JohnnyReb
August 11th, 2010
8:43 am
No matter how much lipstick you put on this pig – Obamacare, it is another Democratic welfare program. Yes, Medicare and Medicaid before Obamacare are a form of welfare. The money doesn’t work on those, so what does Barry do? Doubledown. Add on how its big government intrusion and you have the Obamanation that it is. It will lose in court. It will be either repealed or revised.
Obama – one and done (we will see how long Ms Tucker allows me to continue posting this line?)
Peadawg
August 11th, 2010
8:46 am
“Peadawg, Insurance companies will cover 30 million more
people without raising premiums by charging them the same
premium as everyone else.
”
That actually did not answer my question…thanks for trying. You’re not taking into effect the price medicine and procedures will be higher in 2014 than they are now. Sure there will be 30 million more premiums, but premiums will be higher in 2014 than they are. This Obamacare won’t stop premiums from increasing.
moddyd
August 11th, 2010
8:49 am
@ Bubba
Thanks for posting that. I was wondering if anyone else had done that. This post by CT makes no sense. If anything Obamacare like others have pointed out has made the insurance companies increase premiums to try and make up for the loss in profits that are sure to come when Obamacare goes into effect.
Enoch
August 11th, 2010
8:49 am
The run up to the vote on Obamacare was full of lies from the democrats. We can expect many, many more this fall.
Tucker can try to defend it all she wants but this is desgined from teh beginning to be a government takeover of health care. The federal government wants to regulate what care is available, who accesses it and when. There are hundreds of new boards who will be planning and regulating every aspect of this most inimate service.
Of course Tucker knows this is socialized.. She even knows the big insurance companies favored it. She needs to shill to try to protect her democrat buddies who are going to be called to account for supporting this massively unpopular and expensive takeover.
Alatsea
August 11th, 2010
8:50 am
barking frog, ????????????????????
hahahahaha!!!!!
August 11th, 2010
8:50 am
The L.A. Times!?!?! You might as well cite the DNC!!! hahahahahahahahaa!!!!
Cynthia = Lefty Fox News
August 11th, 2010
8:50 am
Way too early to make any judgments about the effectiveness (either way) of the Healthcare reform. Touting its success (Cynthia) and listing its failures (everyone else) is irresponsibly premature.
milk
August 11th, 2010
8:52 am
Just like how the Germans didn’t like it when Hitler attempted to nationalize their healthcare, Americans today do not like it when Odumba does it.
natalie
August 11th, 2010
8:53 am
Cynthia might even be more delusional than Maher and Olbermann. Her “dealer” is selling her paintchips instead of the good stuff.
barking frog
August 11th, 2010
8:53 am
Is government mandated auto insurance welfare?
Not many consider it welfare, but in essence it
is welfare for insurance companies because they
are “entitled” to your premiums. Your only choice
is which one to pay.
tommytwotone
August 11th, 2010
8:53 am
The full healthcare law isn’t even in effect yet. They still have to set up all their new agencies, institute new taxes, etc.
That’s like claiming a car is reliable while it still only has ten miles on the odometer.
Also, Obummer promised that premium rates would DROP by 20% once the law passed..never happened. Never will happen.
The raise in rates is due to government interference. Don’t be mad at the insurance companies who have to survive this administration.
left wing
August 11th, 2010
8:54 am
I’ve looked at the health care bill as a huge jobs bill.
If we’re adding 37 million people to the insured list, that means more hospitals are needed; more nurses, doctors, more nurses uniforms, doctor uniforms, more equipment, more medication, more building space for the hospitals/doctor offices, etc. The list is endless.
T-Town
August 11th, 2010
8:54 am
If you will be getting your health care for free, or at a greatly reduced price, the new Healthcare bill is simply heaven. If you have to pay for it and I see a huge increase in the number of people simply dropping health care, paying the fine, until they become ill, this could become hell on earth.
Jose
August 11th, 2010
8:55 am
lynn @ 8:37, you have lost your mind woman! The public option was a good thing? Don’t worry sweetheart, Reid and Pelosi are still going to try and get the PO in before they lose control. Wow! Are you misinformed!
tommytwotone
August 11th, 2010
8:55 am
Peadawg, Insurance companies will cover 30 million more
people without raising premiums by charging them the same
premium as everyone else.
———————————–
And if these 30 million people take out more money then they put into the system, who foots the bill, hmmmmm??
granny godzilla
August 11th, 2010
8:55 am
Y’all are having a piffle party….how cute.
Peadawg
August 11th, 2010
8:57 am
“And if these 30 million people take out more money then they put into the system, who foots the bill, hmmmmm??”
Exactly. Premiums will go up even though Obama said they wouldn’t.
ayers
August 11th, 2010
8:57 am
am I the only one that notices how CT is yet to use a legitimate source for anything????
Jose
August 11th, 2010
8:57 am
barkin’ frog, where the hell did you get that information? Premiums are already going up due to the fact that more people will be getting covered. Do you have company insurance?
tommytwotone
August 11th, 2010
8:59 am
I’ve looked at the health care bill as a huge jobs bill.
—————————————————————
I’m sure it’ll work as good as all other Democrat “jobs” bills, which are really just tax hikes and big government growth disguised as some sort of benefit.
andygrd
August 11th, 2010
8:59 am
Some Additional reading for you and who supported heathcare:
But the fact that big health insurance gave critical support to Obamacare is far more than merely interesting. It has major implications both to supporters of Obamacare, especially the ones who hope for an eventual single-payer outcome, and to opponents of Obamacare, many of whom hope to repeal it after the 2010 mid-term elections.
For the health insurance industry to have supported Obamacare, especially in the manner that it did, leads us to three conclusions.
First, while almost nobody realized it at the time, the passage of healthcare reform –- in some form or another –- turns out to have been inevitable. Quite simply, the insurance industry was telling us in every way they knew how that they just could not tolerate the status quo any longer. And since the insurance industry is critical to maintaining the status quo, then one way or another, the status quo had to end.
Second, the health insurance industry has just succeeded in demonstrating its great and continuing worth to the Progressive agenda, a fact that might make it more difficult than many think for Progressives to achieve their real goal –- a single-payer healthcare system. If our Progressive leaders have been paying attention, the health insurance industry has taught them two important lessens in this regard.
The insurance industry has taught them that running the American healthcare system, especially under a covert rationing paradigm, is a messy, ugly and painful job, and further, that it is destined to turn out badly. This, indeed, is the chief lessen that the health insurance industry has learned over the past 15+ years. DrRich believes that many of the Progressives who are now in a position of leadership, and who are on the brink of achieving at long last a primary goal of the Progressive agenda –- government control of healthcare -– are aware of this fact. So they are probably not quite as self-assured about their ability to achieve healthcare nirvana, for instance, as the insurance executives were in 1994. They can see, from the experience of the insurance industry, that even draconian efforts to covertly ration healthcare are very likely to fail to slow healthcare inflation over the long term.
And finally, the third conclusion. Since the health insurance industry has been telling us that they are at the end of their rope, to the point that their best option was selling themselves out to President Obama and his ruthless refomers, then the idea that Obamacare can simply be repealed, or de-funded, or de-featured, or declared unconstitutional, so that we can just go back to the healthcare system we’ve had since 1994, is absurd.
Indeed, even though Obamacare is now law, the health insurance companies are by no means out of the woods. There remains a real question as to whether the provisions of Obamacare will be sufficient for the short-term viability of the health insurance industry. Most of the provisions of Obamacare –- in particular, the individual mandates the insurance companies are relying upon for their One Last Windfall –- do not go into effect until 2014.
At least until then, the insurance companies likely will need to keep increasing their annual premiums at astronomical rates in the attempt to remain sufficiently profitable. Can the system sustain such increases until 2014? Or, will the provisions of Obamacare have to be accelerated? Or, will Obamacare have to be revised, for instance, to add the much reviled (or much desired, depending on your political views) “public option?”
barking frog
August 11th, 2010
9:00 am
Peadawg 8:46 Administrator payments will hold down
rising premiums as it does with medicare now. The
taxpayer picks up the cost. Again smoke and mirrors
as with all “funding”. Government has no” funding” except
taxes.
Jose
August 11th, 2010
9:00 am
left wing, you have doctors that will be dropping their practices and med schools are already seeing a decline in enrollment. The only entity that will be creating jobs is the federal government due to the amount of managing this oversized pig will need. Just what we need, more government employees.
I'm here from the government and I'm here to help
August 11th, 2010
9:02 am
Health insurance increase year over year.
2009 10%
2010 28%
Do the math! Obama caused this increase! Thanks ctucker, your the best clueless Democratic mongrel I know.