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Aetna CEO Threatened Obamacare Pullout If Feds Opposed Humana Merger

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142 points helloworld | 1 comments | 17 Aug 16 17:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.246s | 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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1. intopieces ◴[17 Aug 16 22:59 UTC] No.12309142[source]▶
I was under the impression that the purpose of the private healthcare marketplace was to satisfy the right-leaning Democrats who were on the fence about passing Obamacare and as a pacifier against a full-scale filibuster by Republicans. I think the architects have known it's going to fail, and want to use this failure as leverage for the creation of the public option.