I do not understand the Teaparty health-care insurance connection

[1-Old-Man]

Looking first at the health-care insurance debate (better called a debacle I suppose) it is not hard to see who would benefit from the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It is the health insurance sector and it is the pharmaceutical industry. So it is no surprise to find that those industries fight against the implementation of the ACA as hard as they did against its passage three years ago.

Next the Teaparty, a "grass-roots" organization that, it has been exposed, owes it existence to Koch brothers funding; the grass that roots the Teaparty does not grow without cash as its fertilizer. The zealots in the Congress that now fight the implementation of the ACA are all closely associated with the Teaparty.

But here is what I don't understand. What about the repeal of the ACA will benefit the infamous brothers? Where is the connection between the for-profit health care industry and the funding source for their primary tool (the Teaparty) that's being used to push for ACA repeal? My searches of Koch brothers holdings haven't turned up any connection between them and the provision of health care. From what I've found the founders and supporters of the Teaparty don't seem to have a dog in this fight, but it is their people have caused and continue it.

[ret5hd]

1. People of the Koch's ilk need for the populace to be desperate.

If we (the royal we) desperately need jobs right now for healthcare, we won't care that they are jobs that will eventually destroy us all (which are the kind of jobs he provides)

[atreides1]

2. A possible connection...

According to the Koch Family Foundations and Philanthropy website, "the foundations and the individual giving of Koch family members" have financially supported organizations "fostering entrepreneurship, education, human services, at-risk youth, arts and culture, and medical research."

Would you say that finanancially supporting organizations that do "medical research" could be connection?

[1-Old-Man]

3. I honestly don't know

Its hard to imagine that less money will flow to medical research under the ACA than without it. But then I don't really know just who it is that actually performs most of the research that is done. Off the top of my hat I'd guess that its mostly done at labs of the teaching hospitals, mostly run by the states through their various University systems and its my understanding, possibly very much misinformed, that the Pharmaceutical industry does a lot of its own research in addition to the research it funds at, once again, the teaching hospitals. But all of this is supposition on my part.

[Romulox]

4. The ACA is mandatory, for-profit insurance. The Insurance Industry isn't against it.

[1-Old-Man]

5. Doesn't the ACA cut into it insurance industry per-client profits?

I understand the relationship between marginal cost and maximum profit and I'm not sure they can suck enough profit out of the new customers that will be forced into the market to make up for the profitability of the system in pre-ACA terms. They were doing awfully well before the young and poor were sent to their doorsteps.

[Romulox]

6. No. It guarantees them tens of million additional captive customers (US!)

And a 20% guaranteed margin for expenses and profit, compared to Medicare's 2%.

Insurers are prospering under the ACA.

[Bandit]

7. The wealthy have "Cadilac Plans" that will get taxed heavily under ACA.

It is all about GREED...GREED and POWER

[pnwmom]

8. It also included adding millions to Medicaid, and will be funding

the experiments of any states, like Vermont, that want to try a single-payer system.

And it will probably open the door to a public option down the road and then even a national single-payer system. The Koch brothers know all this, even though many progressives don't.

[Andy823]

11. +1,000,000 nt

[randome]

9. There is no connection. There is no long-range plan.

Bored, unhappy billionaires desperate for a challenge. That's all this is, IMO. It's funny how they telegraph their shortcomings despite all that money.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[DGeorge]

10. Two words: Stupidity and Ignorance.