Friday, July 24, 2015

Forty-Eight Billion!


If anyone still believes our system of health care financing makes any sense as long as it includes the health insurance industry, this ought to disabuse them of the misapprehension: 
The health insurer Anthem said on Friday that it had agreed to acquire its rival Cigna for $48.3 billion in a deal that would further concentrate the United States market to just a few major players. 
The combined company would have estimated revenue of about $115 billion and serve more than 53 million people with medical coverage...
Sure, the Affordable Care Act is better than no change at all. But, as many have said from the beginning, it's a sop to insurance companies and sucks billions in profits and administrative costs out of the system, dollars that ought to be spent on actual care.

And, of course, it makes even more of a joke out of the claims of the right-wing screamers that it's a government takeover, socialist commie nazi Kenyan thing that makes you hate America and marry someone of the same sex while you stand, gunless, before a death panel.

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