Obamacare

Aetna Fights Back Against Antitrust Goons, Threatens to Drop Obamacare

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

It’s always nice to see companies fighting back against the Feds. Aetna’s got some guts and some ammo doing this, because the government is going to go after them hard now, looking for all kinds of regulations that it “violates”. Aetna is threatening to drop out of Obamacare, which is already reeling from other major pullouts. Soon there will be no insurers left.

It is basically telling the Justice Department to leave it alone in its business plans to merge with Humana, which needs to be done to save the companies after Obamacare is draining the entire system by subsidizing high cost patients with money that doesn’t exist because younger people aren’t signing up, amazingly.

The Justice Department is in charge of deciding which mergers are a “trust” and which are fine, which they do totally arbitrarily because there is no objective definition of what a “trust” is. From the letter written by Mark Bertolini, CEO of Aetna, to some guy named Ryan, an antitrust lawyer working for The Man:

Our analysis to date makes clear that if the deal were challenged and/or blocked we would need to take immediate actions to mitigate public exchange and ACA small group losses. Specifically, if the DOJ sues to enjoin the transaction, we will immediately take action to reduce our 2017 exchange footprint…

Unfortunately, a challenge by the DOJ to that acquisition and/or the DOJ successfully blocking the transaction would have a negative financial impact on Aetna and would impair Aetna’s ability to continue its support, leaving Aetna with no choice but to take actions to steward its financial health. These contemplated actions would include the actions discussed below.

Although we remain supportive of the Administration’s efforts to expand coverage, we must also face market realities. Our customers expect us to keep their insurance products affordable and continually improving, and our shareholders expect that we will generate a market return on invested capital for them. We have been operating on the public exchanges since the beginning of 2014 at a substantial loss…

Finally, based on our analysis to date, we believe it is very likely that we would need to leave the public exchange business entirely and plan for additional business efficiencies should our deal ultimately be blocked.

 

 

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Supreme Court Gives Liberty to Gays, Slavery to Rich

rafifarber Health Care, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , ,

Today the Supreme Court declared gay marriage legal throughout the US. That’s very good. People should be allowed to sign whatever contracts they want with whoever. The most important aspects as I understand it is that gay couples can now have visitation rights at hospitals, power of attorney, and inheritance rights with whoever they want.

At the same time, the Supreme Court has also legalized Obamacare, or a massive theft from the rich to the poor. It will collapse.

Bob Wenzel notes at EPJ the similarity between Chief Justice John Roberts and Mussolini:

“Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in a 21-page opinion, which sounds like it came straight out of Mussolini economics.

From My Autobiography by Benito Mussolini:

I have wanted the Fascist government, above all, to give great care to social legislation…I think that Italy is advanced beyond all European nations; in fact, it has ratified laws…for obligatory insurance against tuberculosis…All this shows how, in every detail in the field of labor, I stand by the working labor…from insurance against accidents to the indemnity against illness.

Chief Injustice Roberts was on the wrong side of both these issues. He voted against gay marriage but for Obamacare. Sad to see that gay people won’t be enjoying their marriages very much through their new hospital visitation rights when the healthcare system in the US completely implodes because of people like Roberts.

I myself am against all state marriage. But if gays want to be taxed more so they can be hassled less on inheritance and power of attorney and visitation, then go for it.

 

HYPOCRISY Why do Republicans care what Jonathan Gruber Said about Obamacare?

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

A very simple question: Why do Republicans care what Jonathan Gruber said about Obamacare if they have no intention of repealing the law? Even Rand Paul, the most “conservative” of Republicans, is “unsure if Obamacare should be repealed.” They will simply change it. Not in any way that matters though. They will replace Democrat cronies who make money off the law with Republican cronies who will make money off it.

If Rand Paul is unsure if Obamacare should be repealed, you better believe that Mitch McConnell, the Kreep from Kentucky, has NO intention of ever repealing Obamacare. Why not? Because Republicans are just as much into Big Government as Democrats are. They just like enriching their own allies via Big Government rather than Democrat allies.

So I guess Republicans agree with Gruber’s assessment of the stupidity of the American voter, because no matter who Americans vote for, Obamacare will stand. They should be nodding their heads and congratulating Gruber, not demonizing him. Gruber and Republicans agree. They would much rather have the law passed than not.

 

Nobody has a right to health care

rafifarber Health Care, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

I was watching Bloomberg News yesterday. I would embed the video but I can’t find it after a 20 minute archive search. The video snippet was an interview of some guy that was saying that the Supreme Court would not overturn Obamacare. It wasn’t his prediction that interested me, but rather his principle. During the interview, he said something like this:

Once we decide that health care is a fundamental right, then implementing it is only a question of finances.

He is correct of course. If health care is a right, then government has the responsibility of providing it. The game then becomes how. The problem is his premise. Health care is not a right. The reason health care is not a right is that it requires somebody else’s services, and nobody has any right to anybody else’s services.

Suppose there are not enough doctors to provide enough health care services to everyone. If everyone has a right to health care, then by extension the government can force people to become doctors who do not want to be doctors. If everyone has a right to health care, then the government should make statistics regarding how many doctors the State needs to treat X amount of people. Factor in population growth, and medical schools will be forced to graduate a certain quota of doctors at minimum to provide for everyone else’s right to health care. If they fail to meet this quota, the administration should be put in prison for not providing for other people’s fundamental right to health care. Universities, by extension, will be forced to have X students take pre-med courses. If they do not meet their quota, the will have to force students who do not want to take pre-med courses, to indeed take them. If they don’t, these students should go to prison, because they refuse to provide for other people’s fundamental right to health care.

You can see here that assuming health care to be a fundamental right interferes with the actual fundamental right to liberty. People actually DO have a right to be free, and not imprisoned because they do not want to provide for other people’s health care.

Life, liberty, and equal treatment under the law are the only fundamental rights we have. They are fundamental rights because we were all created equal by God, and God created us to be His servants, not man’s servant. The right to one’s life is not the right to take something from someone else. It’s the right to not have something taken from you.

The right to one’s liberty is not a right to take something from someone else. It’s the right to not have something taken from you.

The supposed “right” to health care is indeed the right to take something from someone else. If we assume health care to be a right, then life and liberty are gone.

Health care is a service. It must be payed for voluntarily like any other service.