Aetna CEO Threatened Obamacare Pullout If Feds Opposed Humana Merger

So how can consumers respond to this corporate chicanery? In a capitalist system, the natural recourse is for citizens to turn to the private market for alternatives. Could this provide an incentive for Aetna's competitors to make it easier for Aetna's customers to switch to them?

One would assume that libertarians and free marketeers would cheer the concept of boycotts, as it is one of the mechanisms that citizens are empowered with in a laissez-faire society.

What corporate chicanery? They took a loss on exchange plans last year. They have every right to pull out of the exchanges until the government makes them stay.

I'm a supporter of single payer. But the health care market is a sterling example of the "worst of all solutions" espoused by the Democrats. Instead of simply raising everyone's taxes to pay for public services, they try to get companies to do hidden cross-subsidization, propping up money-losing individual plans with profits from group plans. And then they berate companies for pulling out of money-losing enterprises, as if providing healthcare for people who can't afford it is the job of private companies rather than the government.

It's more about opposing their attempts to thwart antitrust law. After AT&T's merger failed, T-Mobile used the money and the public fallout as an opportunity to reinvent themselves as a company that caters to the public. I'm wondering if this could be a similar opportunity for Aetna's competitors.

If the government is unable to prevent monopolies, then consumers should step in by punishing companies that seek to monopolize.

Edit: Again, that's one of the concepts behind libertarianism, isn't? The idea that instead of relying upon government regulation, there's almost some economic reputation system in place which would cause consumers to reject doing business with bad actors. So in theory, the recourse here would be for the individual consumer to reject Aetna directly in response for their monopolistic practices.

The headline is misleading. Aetna didn't threaten to pullout if their merger wasn't approved, they said that they would be forced to do so because they would be losing too much money. That isn't "attempting to thwart antitrust law," it's simply stating the facts.

Then so be it. If Aetna is unable to withstand the rigors of the post-Obamacare climate, then they should fail accordingly. Their competitors seem to be able to hold on without resorting to monopolistic tactics. Better they fail now, before they become too big to fail through mergers and acquisitions.

You make it seem like forcing a company to serve an unprofitable market is the same as regular market competition. It's not. It's extremely distortionary. And it hurts competition--it basically means only huge insurance companies that make big profits on group plans they can use to offset losses on exchange plans can afford to enter the market.