Aetna forcing 600,000+ people to lose coverage in order to increase profit margin
Offline http://seekingalpha.com/article/169904-aetna-inc-q3-2009-earnings-conference-call?page=-1
The insurance giant is raising prices dramatically in order to further increase profits. They predict to lose 300,000 to 350,000 members next year from their national account, and another 300,000 from smaller group accounts.
"The pricing we put in place for 2009 turned out to not really be what we needed to achieve the results and margins that we had historically been delivering," - CEO Ron Williams
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2009/11/30/bisb1130.htm
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Laying out specific expected membership losses is "pretty candid," said David Gibbs, a retired health insurance industry consultant from San Luis Obispo, Calif. He worked for and consulted with health insurers, including Aetna, for 25 years, and most recently was with New Jersey-based Health Economics Consulting Group. He said Aetna's decision comes from a system that encourages insurers to drive away sicker members -- a strategy not unique to one insurer. "They're running a business, and their obligation is a very singular one: to increase shareholder profits." " Free market at work.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
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I'm glad that I don't have Aetna anymore,I have Medicare now.I really feel sorry for all of the uninsured people in our country.It's Socialism for the rich and Capitalism for the rest of us,boy ,what a great (not) we live in.I could go on about the hypocrisy,but you heard it all before.
Signature ? How ?
This is why we can't let Obamacare pass. It would deprive us of the opportunity for a corporation to say "Bye! Thanks for the cash!" and leave folks floundering like this.
Privatize everything! Woo!
These customers aren't being forced out of coverage - Aetna is preparing to lose between 600,000 and 650,000 customers due to price increases. If the customers are unwilling or unable to pay, then they obviously have the choice to do business with another company.
Your presentation of this issue is dishonest and deceptive.
Granting groups such as this a government sanctioned monopoly and demanding that all Americans buy their product helps how?
Those people aren't even going to lose coverage. They are going to switch to a cheaper provider. Imagine if the headline was "Safeway to increase all food prices by 20%, expects to lose 600,000 customers." Would you be saying that they are causing all of those people to starve to death? Of course not. Those people would find a new cheaper grocery store and everyone would move on. The exact same thing is happening here. One business has announced that they are ramping prices up and expect their customers to flee them in response. Makes sense to me. But then it wasn't about making sense when you made this thread. It was about hyperbole and making the mean ol' capitalists look extra evil.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
... 1 slight problem Jorm
A grocery store wont deny you the ability to purchase food.
Go get cancer, have your med. insurance company drop you (or you drop them in this case)
Now go find another company that will accept you! Not gonna happen right?
What Would Kharn Do?
Obviously they aren't being forced out of coverage! You are absolutely correct!
The prices are just being made unaffordable for them, so they can't pay for it! That isn't forcing them out of coverage. Clearly.
The fact that there are a lack of companies that aren't instantly eaten or destroyed by the oligopoly that is the insurance market just means that the market isn't FREE enough. We have to FREE it more so that way they aren't limited with their price collusions!
If they charge 40k/year for coverage and are contracted with all the medical facilities to be one of the only insurances accepted then it isn't preventing anyone from getting coverage in any way. Also, pre-existing conditions have never existed, and everyone is accepted to any insurance plan they apply for. There will be an option there in the free market! I mean, the stakeholder-answering corporations think of making affordable healthcare for people first!
Because in REALITY, everything is like a grocery store and I can use a grade-school level of references to resolve every problem! Just like how I made that square peg fit in that round hole.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.