GOP in bed with big insurance

[wiredshut]

It's been pointed out - if the GOP really thought the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was a bust, they would welcome it. They would then watch it fail and reap the rewards come election time. Clearly this is not their approach.

So just WHAT is driving them? What is their motive? They hate President Obama? Yeah, but this is something more. Could it be that they are truly concerned about the people they fail to represent? Yeah, right! Here's another possibility: they get huge amounts of money from the insurance industry. Be it in the form of campaign contributions or many of them have large amounts of stock in insurance companies; it doesn't matter. Money is money, the GOP gets it one way or another and THE LAST THING THEY WANT TO DO IS UPSET THE STATUS QUO. Doing so would reduce their campaign contributions and/or severely reduce their stock returns.

The Republicants are protecting their investment interest - even if it means screwing millions of Americans.

[Laelth]

1. Many of them bought into their own propaganda.

Here's Ronald Reagan bashing socialized medicine in 1961:

-Laelth

[LTR]

2. Your first paragraph nails it

And I will shamelessly borrow that.

[GTurck]

3. Insurance companies...

stand to win either way. They know they will not lose most of their customers without ACA. They also know they will have a huge new group who have to get insurance from them to comply with the law. Billions of dollars either way.

[1StrongBlackMan]

6. No, they don’t …

While they will get a huge group of new customers, this will be balanced by the increased costs of removal of the life time cap, the provision of no-cost preventative care visits, the coverage of pre-existing conditions, etc., none of which the currently have to account for; plus, along with that new customer base comes a cap on profits (the med/loss ratio).

Frankly, I think the med/loss ratio is what is causing the insurance industry decision-makers the most heart-burn … while the increased coverage cuts into their share-holders pockets, the med/loss ratio cuts directly into the executives’ pocket.

[egold2604]

4. ACA forces them to use 80% of premiums for health care

Doing the math, most health insurance companies use 40% of premiums for overhead and profit. Overhead includes bloated salaries for executives and profit that is distributed to shareholders in the form of dividends.

ACA forces these insurance companies to use 80% of their premiums for health care expenditures resulting in billions of dollars of profit no longer being distributed to shareholders. This is why the 1%'s representatives in congress, the Republican Party, is fighting ACA.

[Stuart G]

5. excellent point..Insurance companies want to give more to their executives and shareholders..nt

[Myrina]

7. JUST the GOP?

Think again.

[Avalux]

8. Republicans are corporate whores - greed drives everything they do.

They worship $$$$ (not God, as they'd like everyone to believe), have no respect or regard for this country's Constitution, and certainly don't give a damn about what happens to any of us.