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Aetna CEO Threatened Obamacare Pullout If Feds Opposed Humana Merger

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142 points helloworld | 2 comments | 17 Aug 16 17:52 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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seibelj ◴[17 Aug 16 18:06 UTC] No.12306806[source]▶
Can anyone succinctly explain the benefits of having a market for private health insurance companies, rather than a single provider of health insurance (government, aka "public option")? Can a capitalist case be made for their existence? Does the lack of a large private insurance market in countries with government-provided health insurance cause lots of inefficiencies and waste?
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api ◴[17 Aug 16 18:15 UTC] No.12306909[source]▶
There's no benefit I can see. Our present system combines everything that is bad about "socialized" medicine (loads of regulation, bureaucracy, inflexibility, etc.) with everything that is bad about private medicine (inequality, high cost, fragmentation).
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1. Cursuviam ◴[17 Aug 16 18:17 UTC] No.12306939[source]▶
One of the few benefits is that the rich do well in this system.
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2. Frondo ◴[17 Aug 16 18:20 UTC] No.12306974[source]▶
It's not just the rich who do well, it's the middlemen at every step of the process. Everyone skims a little extra off the top when medicine or medical equipment is so expensive. Bring costs in line with any other western nation and you're looking at a massive wealth transfer away from everyone with their finger in the health care pie--not just the rich.