health insurance

(ANTIMEDIA Op-Ed) Government’s meddling in the healthcare business has been disastrous from the get-go.

Yesterday CNN interviewed John Kasich, who was in Munich for a security conference. Among other things, they asked him about Paul Ryan's and the House Republicans' plans to take away health care from millions of Americans by "phasing out" the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. You can listen to Kasich's response in the short video above. In short, he's appalled.

(ANTIMEDIA) Earlier this month, the IRS made a seemingly insignificant change to its policy, undermining the Obamacare mandate in a very significant way.

This week NBC News and the Wall Street Journal released a poll showing Trump with an unfavorable rating from 46% of Americans and a favorable rating with 40%, an improvement for him since last month, but the lowest favorability rating of any president-elect about to take office ever.

Republicans hope that as Trump’s choice to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, R-Ga, will dismantle President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
US President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he would nominate Georgia Congressman Tom Price as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. The orthopedic surgeon is a critic of the Affordable Care Act, more commonly referred to as “Obamacare.”

The cost of health care vs. the consumer price index for the last ten years (source; click to enlarge). Note especially 2009 and 2010, recession years for the CPI. If you do click through to the source, note that its author apparently doesn't understand the relationship between monopolies and pricing power.

BREAKING: Obama administration says https://t.co/Elaw2I8wgo premiums will go up by double-digit percentages next year.— The Associated Press (@AP) October 24, 2016

by Gaius PubliusIt's not looking good for the ACA, commonly called Obamacare. From the AP:

I don't know what it's like in your state. I know a lot of nurses in Florida come from Haiti. When my friend Stephen's mom died after a long, protracted illness, he gave her primary nurse several hundred thousand dollars from his mom's estate. His mom wanted him to and Stephen described the nurse to me as an angel who made his mother's last years not just bearable, but worthwhile for her.

by Gaius PubliusCigna and Anthem are health insurance giants that want to merge. Cigna is Connecticut-based (the "C" in Cigna stands for "Connecticut") and pulls in over $1.6 billion in revenue. Its 2012 total assets topped $50 billion.Anthem, Inc. used to be known as Wellpoint, and if you click the link, you'll see that it too is a player.

(ZHE) If Obamacare enrollments continue their current trend and insurers continue to hike premiums at alarming rates then Republicans may not have to worry about “repealing and replacing Obamacare” as it might just work itself out “naturally”.  The 4th open enrollment period for Obamacare begins on November 1, 2016 and industry experts are warning that another year of tepid demand from “young and healthy” Americans could force more insurers o