Sen. Franken Challenges Insurance Mergers
Watch Senator Al Franken attempt to a get a simple yes or no answer from some very slippery CEOs:
Watch Senator Al Franken attempt to a get a simple yes or no answer from some very slippery CEOs:
Sounds like more sociopathic liars running business as usual…
Both of these CEO’s are obviously paid their enormous salaries and other gigantic compensations for being the pathological liars and experts in obfuscation that they are.
Healthcare Insurers should NOT be allowed exist on Wall Street. The very idea that they do betrays the trust and best interest of the insured. They are putting profit above the business of affordable healthcare. They are beholding only to the board of directors — they should be beholding only to their subscribers. Lastly, they certainly shouldn’t be allowed to merge into behemoths too big to fail.
What frustrates me is that Abbott Labs is allowed to put millions in off shore accounts that could be better used to help people. In my case, I am taking Humira for arthritis but only because my Dr. is getting me samples. I was getting a shot a week when I had insurance but lost the insurance because of divorce. Abbott will pay 3/4 of the cost, at over $2200 per shot leaving me with 1/4, over $500 per shot. Even though my Dr. is helping me with two shots a month, it is not enough, I am losing to the arthritis, especially use of my hands and mobility.
There is no way I can afford $500 a shot when my SS is not quite $1500 per month
Humiras’ price has risen almost $1000 in the last 5 or 6 years.
If these guys’ companies want to merge in order to make my health insurance more affordable, then why did the company, Aetna, send me a notice saying that the premium is going up by 35%?
I would love to have had Senator Franken ask them which one of them will be laid off as a result of the merger. Don’t need two CEOs of course. And what pay cut will the other take when his job is easier as a result of the economies of scale.
What a bunch of gobbledy gook those men are spouting!
Both of these people would not commit. They gave a barrage of qualifiers that sounded like recorded gobbly goop. Anytime companies merge to become larger, they will always raise their prices because they no longer have competition to keep prices in check and because they own a significant portion of the market for health care, they can do whatever they want. I hope this merger is denied. We don’t need an Oligopoly in Health Care. Price increases of up to two thousand percent in generic drugs are a great example of what companies do when there is no competition.
The reason for a single payer, public option healthcare system is to ultimately eliminate insurance companies and healthcare for profit.
There is ONLY one way we can rid our society of leeches and scum like this, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE in ALL elections by replacing the corporate whores we have in our government now with people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.Until Americans do this, prepare to become a third world country!
The savings will be passed on through cuts to the providers. Providers will have to accept these cuts since these large insurers will control access to this huge volume of patients. Humana already reimburses providers only 65% of the Medicare rate for its Medicare advantage customers. This lets them continue to profit off Medicare without it looking like they are raising the cost to the beneficiaries. They wouldn’t be in the Medicare Advantage business unless they were making a healthy profit. If providers would refuse to sign contracts for these low reimbursement rates, the large insurers would have nothing to sell, but if they control the majority of patients, providers will have no choice.
Weasel words!
As Dr. Donald Berwick stated (paraphrasing); “every system achieves what it was designed to achieve.” Judging from our health care “system” the major achievement is shareholder profit and not any healthcare quality measure.
Questions I would have liked answered: 1. “What will be the actual costs to patients of polices after your merger versus today’s costs?” 2. “How much coverage will the patient get vs. “co-pay” & “share of cost?” 3. “How do the costs to the patient compare to the costs paid by patients in Canada, where there is a SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM?” 4. “Where did you learn how to DOUBLE SPEAK? You do it so beautifully.” 5. “The cost of healthcare in this country is the highest in the world, but we are ranked only 37th in quality of care by the World Health Organization, do you see this situation improving any time soon?”
this is insane the CEO of Humana to go 47 million dollar bonus for himself last year talk about sickening!
Health “insurance” companies do not sell a product. They only redistribute money, from paying members to patients requiring care. There is no product that is manufactured, there is nothing that can be made more cost-effectively, and not everyone has a choice as to whom they have for insurance: they have whatever their employer buys for them, and it’s not necessarily the best they can buy (more like the cheapest and least beneficial).
How do they increase profits to keep their stockholders smiling? They can either raise rates, or reduce coverage. The really good companies do both!
Health care is not a capitalist market. It is a socialist market model: everyone needs health care. It isn’t something you want. You need it, just like education (be it high school or college), retirement money of some sort, police and fire), etc… These are services that are needed to maintain a healthy society.
Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who speaks up on these matters, with the proper solution that fits the facts, and who also has the record behind him.
Let’s choose wisely in 2016. Business as usual, with the SuperPAC candidates will only destroy us: they have lots of favors to return to their sponsors when they get into office. Sanders has no SuperPACs to pay back.
Its really simple. This merger should not happen. I am a babyboomer generation citizen. Baby Boomers are pretty much lame in understanding or even paying attention to this situations and crooks.
The good news is that the millennials are our future and this is a generation that is much more aware. Our shitty health system will correct itself thanks to the innovation and minds of the millennials which are slowly shaving profits away from this executives (or so called executives…) which are starting to feel the pain! It is no coincidence this health care organizations are all of a sudden wanting to merge…
We live in a country controlled by big business. Their plans to make change will only be done to profit them, not the consumer. Eventually when they run out of people to exploit, they will fight among themselves. What does that translate to? Another war will take place and this time who will be willing to fight it?