Taxpayer bailouot for insurance companies in 2014?

Absolutely.

Obamacare fans don't know about this feature of the law or don't care to acknowledge it but a guarantee of Insurer profit is baked into the law.

Why else would the whorish Health Insurance industry have embraced the bill?

They know the insurers will lose money in (at least) the first few years of this legislative abomination, and they have promised them they will make good on such losses.

It is why the government can play fast and loose with the terms of the law and tell insurers they have to do things they, otherwise, would never do.

Insurers may bitch about the administrative chaos that has ensued from Obama fiats, but the bottom line is that their profit will not be affected.

So all you Progressives who hate corporations in general and insurers in particular, let it be known that your Progressive hero Obama has cut a deal with the insurers that will allow them to profit no matter how f*cked up the law may be.

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Absolutely.

Obamacare fans don't know about this feature of the law or don't care to acknowledge it but a guarantee of Insurer profit is baked into the law.

Why else would the whorish Health Insurance industry have embraced the bill?

Why indeed.

The Risk Corridor is the enticement but the primary reason was a panicked attempt to forestall a single payer (government) system that would at best shrink them far beyond their current size. They decided to dance with the Devil.

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

They know the insurers will lose money in (at least) the first few years of this legislative abomination, and they have promised them they will make good on such losses.

Not quite. The problem is that nobody knows what rates should be charged under the ACA regime. Insurance actuaries are operating in a fog right now, since their numbers are based on the pre-ACA marketplace. Consequently, the government has had to step in to take some of the risk off the hands of the insurance companies, who would otherwise be operating in an actuarial black hole.

The entire plan is predicated upon forcing the healthy to enter a pool with the sick. Unless that plan doesn't work, the actuaries should have a pretty good idea of what the rates should be. The only uncertainty the Risk Corrider is intended to mitigate is the caveronous uncertainty of the law's foundational premise, and how all of the political tinkering will degrade it.

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

It is why the government can play fast and loose with the terms of the law and tell insurers they have to do things they, otherwise, would never do.

Insurers don't have to do what the government tells them to do. They can always get out of the health insurance business.

And you're OK with that level of extortion?

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Insurers may bitch about the administrative chaos that has ensued from Obama fiats, but the bottom line is that their profit will not be affected.

It's true that the insurance companies will benefit enormously from Obamacare in the long run. That's because well-managed insurance companies always make money in the long run. After all, that's how insurance works. But it's wrong to say that their profits won't be affected. The risk corridors run both ways: if the insurers post losses, the government will make up some of the difference, but if the insurers post bigger-than-expected profits, they will be required to kick some of that back to the feds.

The insurers didn't join the dance to make greater than expected profits, they joined to be able to keep making profit. Obviously if they have to turn back some unexpected profit, that can be considered an "affect," but their fear of losing great gobs of money greatly outweighs any insignificant hope of making great gobs.

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

So all you Progressives who hate corporations in general and insurers in particular, let it be known that your Progressive hero Obama has cut a deal with the insurers that will allow them to profit no matter how f*cked up the law may be.

Considering that Obamacare was first proposed by conservatives, why should anyone be surprised that it will end up being a big give-away to the private sector? And given that Marco Rubio is the guy right now who is sponsoring a bill to eliminate the risk corridors, does that mean that Rubio is our new progressive hero?

The idea that Obamacare is a conservative idea is absurd, but that won't stop Progressives from bringing it up in every discussion of the law.....

The entire plan is predicated upon forcing the healthy to enter a pool with the sick. Unless that plan doesn't work, the actuaries should have a pretty good idea of what the rates should be. The only uncertainty the Risk Corrider is intended to mitigate is the caveronous uncertainty of the law's foundational premise, and how all of the political tinkering will degrade it.

And you're OK with that level of extortion?

The insurers didn't join the dance to make greater than expected profits, they joined to be able to keep making profit.

The idea that Obamacare is a conservative idea is absurd, but that won't stop Progressives from bringing it up in every discussion of the law.

I doubt you are prepared to assert that every idea dreamed up by conservative politicians or Think Tanks is a good one and so I don't know why you expect me to.

Quote:

The idea that Obamacare is a conservative idea is absurd, but that won't stop Progressives from bringing it up in every discussion of the law.....

Sounds like a last resort... The biggest political screw-up in recorded history on the edge of implosion and the last resort of the super losers who designed it is to blame it on the other side which tried to prevent it.

(RNN) - Insurance companies may face reduced profits once the new Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, goes into effect.

Facing potential losses are the largest U.S. medical insurer, UnitedHealth and others such as Aetna, WellPoint, Cigna and Humana. These companies are concerned about profit limits and new taxes to cover some of the cost of expanding healthcare coverage to as many as 30 million uninsured people starting in 2014, according to MSN.

If actual claims exceed projections by more than 3 percent under Obamacare, the government will compensate the industry for those losses.

Way back in 2010, one of the first things the health-care law required was that insurers spend the vast majority — 80 percent — of subscriber premiums on actual medical costs, as opposed to profits and administrative activities.