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McCook Gazette

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Editorial

Will market forces spell the end of Obamacare?

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Donald Trump and other Republicans have repeatedly called for the repeal of Obamacare, but it looks like market forces might do that job for them.

What isn't clear is what Republicans or Democrats will come up with to replace it. Is a Canada-style single-payer system as inevitable as many believe?

Another major insurance company has made it clear there are many states where it won't be paying.

Aetna announced it would pull out of health insurance exchanges in 11 states, offering coverage through Affordable Care Act exchanges in Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska and Virginia only in 2017, a reduction of 70 percent. That's 242 counties nationally, compared to 780 this year.

It wasn't an unexpected move; the company announced $200 million in ACA-related pretax losses in its second quarter earnings report two weeks ago, and suffered a setback a month ago after the Department of Justice sued to prevent its acquisition of Humana, a competitor.

Nebraska is probably a more viable market for Aetna as a result of the collapse of CoOpportunity Health, a cooperative startup that was unable to cover health costs for members who were more numerous than expected and sicker than expected. It also did not receive federal subsidies that were expected and was taken over by the state.

UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Humana Inc. are also scaling back involvement in health insurance exchanges, and many other smaller nonprofits are going out of operation because of losses and lack of government subsidies.

Perhaps it's too early to pass final judgment on Obamacare, since many of the young, healthy Americans who need to be included are still paying penalties rather than purchasing insurance.

If any ACA opponents have an actually viable plan for providing universal health care, now is the time to speak up.

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  • The Affordable Care Act was designed from the beginning to fail. When the inevitable comes to pass, we will get a one-payer government system like Canada, Great Britain and other nations have.

    The socialists never admit failure. They merely double down claiming we didn't go far enough or spend enough, because the problem was just bigger than anyone could have anticipated.

    Governments do not have a reverse gear. They always grow larger and more expensive, never smaller and less expensive.

    The ACA was a solution in search of a problem. Nobody was being denied care in this country before the ACA, although the hand-wringers wanted us to believe that.

    People want to believe there is a free lunch though; that government can force somebody else to pay for their wants and needs. Every socialist government has collapsed under the weight of all the programs. We are headed there in America. Even our great wealth and productive capacity will be overcome by the cost of cradle to the grave delusions.

    -- Posted by JohnGalt1968 on Thu, Aug 18, 2016, at 9:35 PM

  • Will Clinton expand the program? Will Trump revise it to actually work?

    -- Posted by dennis on Fri, Aug 19, 2016, at 1:40 PM
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