Wendell Potter: Why insurers want ObamaCare's Medicaid business

[antigop]

http://michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/why-insurers-want-obamacares-medicaid-business

The House of Representatives voted for the 33rd time last week to repeal ObamaCare, and for the 33rd time it was an exercise in futility. The Senate will ignore the House vote and allow the reform law to move forward, just as the Supreme Court did last month.

House members are well aware of all that, so the vote was all for show. And GOP leaders have no intention of repealing the Affordable Care Act because their friends in the health insurance industry are counting on major provisions of the law going forward, especially the expansion of Medicaid. Don’t be fooled by Republican governors like Florida’s Rick Scott and Texas’ Rick Perry, who are saying they’ll opt out of the Medicaid expansion now that the Supreme Court says that’s allowable. When the Feds start doling out billions in 2014 to bring an additional 16 million Americans into the Medicaid program, they’ll be on board. Trust me.

Want proof that Big Insurance has figured out how to make a lot of money off reform? Last Monday WellPoint announced it will pay nearly $5 billion to buy the country’s largest private Medicaid managed care company, AmeriGroup. Rest assured that lobbyists for WellPoint and other firms wanting to get their hands on that new Medicaid money will have a “here’s how it has to be” talk with their buddies on Capitol Hill.

If you look at recent quarterly earnings reports from the big five for-profit insurance companies (UnitedHealth, WellPoint, Aetna, Cigna and Humana), you’ll see that the biggest growth in their membership has come not from the private sector but from public programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

[Hoyt]

1. I guess that is one way to get the right wing governors to accept Medicaid expansion.

[Bill USA]

2. recommended!