On Tuesday, May 9, 2017 at 2:09:48 PM UTC-4, Con Reeder, unhyphenated American wrote:
> On 2017-05-09, xyzzy <
xyzzy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tuesday, May 9, 2017 at 1:04:27 PM UTC-4, Con Reeder, unhyphenated American wrote:
> >> On 2017-05-09, xyzzy <
xyzzy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-aetna-obamacare-20170123-story.html
> >> >
> >> > Aetna didn't pull out of Obamacare because they were losing money.
> >> > They pulled out because they thought it would help make their case for
> >> > a merger with Humana.
> >>
> >> I note that you aren't trying to do a Gruber, where you claim Trump
> >> caused the current problems with Obamacare. But are you going to claim
> >> that the insurers are doing just fine, and the myriad other pull-outs
> >> were for similar, non-performance-related reasons?
> >
> > I don't make any claims other than that the Aetna talking point was
> > BS. Now the question is, what general assumption should that cause
> > one to question?
>
> None unless you are going to believe that the preponderance of
> evidence about one narrow question is dispositive to the whole
> market.
>
> "In fact, says Judge John D. Bates, Aetna made its decision at least
> partially in response to a federal antitrust lawsuit blocking its
> proposed $34-billion merger with Humana."
>
> In other words, he nowhere discounts Aetna's statement that they
> were doing poorly in that business.
You must have missed this part:
"Bates found that this rationalization was largely untrue. In fact, he noted, Aetna pulled out of some states and counties that were actually profitable to make a point in its lawsuit defense — and then misled the public about its motivations."
or this:
“Indeed, he wrote, Aetna’s decision to pull out of the exchange business in Florida was “so far outside of normal business practice” that it perplexed the company’s top executive in Florida, who was not in the decision loop.
“I just can’t make sense out of the Florida dec[ision],” the executive, Christopher Ciano, wrote to Jonathan Mayhew, the head of Aetna’s national exchange business. “Based on the latest run rate data . . . we are making money from the on-exchange business. Was Florida’s performance ever debated?” Mayhew told him to discuss the matter by phone, not email, “to avoid leaving a paper trail,” Bates found. As it happens, Bates found reason to believe that Aetna soon will be selling exchange plans in Florida again."
Mergers in the healthcare sector: why you'll pay more
Mergers in the healthcare sector: why you'll pay more