A reader writes about rising insurance rates:
To say nothing of the fact that rates would have gone up anyway, even without the ACA. When in the last 10 or 20 years, have annual health insurance ever not gone up significantly each year? I also suspect collusion: Humana’s CEO threw such a hissy fit when the federal government did not allow Humana to merge with Aetna, that he and Humana then claimed they were losing money on the ACA and would not participate next year. That, despite the fact that Humana just had its most profitable year, ever, IIRC.
So yeah, how about some actual data, some actual calculations, some actual thinking about how to fix the problem, instead political whining?
It’s too bad all those pissed off voters supporting Trump are not directing their anger at some of the real culprits, like large corporations and the 0.1% wealthiest who have effectively bought our government, who now take hundreds of times more income than they did a few decades ago (compared to negligible gains for most people), and Wall Street banksters. If those people had some real fear of being called out, harassed and tarred and feathered, I bet things would change a lot faster than they will now. But this is how they stay in power — by having the angry masses misdirected into thinking it’s other citizens’ fault (the poor, the immigrants, the “colored”, the liberals, the non-“Christian”, etc.). Never mind the man behind the curtain.
Yes – and by having nation-wide chains. The fact is, if the CEOs had to live in the towns they served, rate increases would have to be justified – or the CEO would become a very lonely person. As with industrial pollution, it’s harder to have a social impact on those who think their purpose in life is to make money when they live half a continent away – rather than just across the street.
