Only massive bureaucracies with huge compliance and legal departments are equipped to deal with the approximately 40,000 pages of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s laws and regulations. It is crushing competition.
FRIDAY, JULY 24, 2015 – Benefit Revolution Blogspot
The Affordable Consolidation Act Moves the Insurance Market From an Oligopoly to a Duopoly
Only massive bureaucracies with huge compliance and legal departments are equipped to deal with the approximately 40,000 pages of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s laws and regulations. It is crushing competition. Ultimately, I suspect we will end up with two nationwide carriers and at that point the market will be so broken we will need the government to intervene and set the market free or turn it into a fully socialized program. The trajectory of U.S. history suggests a renewed lunge toward freedom is the less likely of those choices.
- Health Affairs Blog: The lessons of oligopoly are pertinent here: consolidation that would pare the insurance sector down to less than a handful of players is likely to chill the enthusiasm for venturing into a neighbor’s market or engaging in risky innovation. One need look no further than the airline industry for a cautionary tale.
- Forbes: Anthem-Cigna Deal Is Bad For Doctors On Obamacare Networks.
- Forbes: Anthem Just Paid $54B To Buy Cigna. No One Knows What Will Happen Next.
- Wall Street Journal: In the game of merger musical chairs the five biggest health insurers have been playing lately, Aetna Inc. and Humana Inc. hustled to grab the first seats.
- Florida Times Union: Aetna’s acquisition of Humana could result in higher premiums, lower payments to providers.
- Market Realist: Health Net bought by company, Centene, which earns about 89% of its total revenues from government-subsidized health insurance programs such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
- Lincoln Journal Star: In the wake of the ACA, Assurant is getting out of the health insurance business.
- Los Angeles Times: As health insurers merge, consumers’ premiums are likely to rise.
