Just Politics

[janice shell]

Yes. The whole "competition is all we need for costs to be lowered" argument is bunk. Even without the kind of consolidation we've seen in the past two decades, they're a cartel. And disallowing mergers doesn't necessarily work. Two very big mergers were proposed recently, and the government blocked them. The result? The companies involved pulled out of the exchanges, saying they "couldn't afford" to take part anymore.

One thing that might perhaps help would be the creation of a "public option", an idea that was so strongly opposed by the insurers when the ACA was originally passed that it wasn't even formally proposed. If done properly, that just might create some real competition.