Democrats shot off some major health-insurer antitrust salvo today

We can open up our health insurance markets to real competition and make an important contribution to the health reform efforts under way in both houses of Congress.
Democratic Congressman John Conyers • On the House Judiciary Committee’s decision to strip health insurers of their antitrust exemption. This is a BIG DEAL, because it means that big insurers can’t collude or price fix or do willy-nilly like they’ve been doing in the past. It means that the insurers will be subject to state AND federal regulation. They’ve had their antitrust exemption since 1945, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid calls “antiquated” and “an accident of American history.” The legislation will be included as part of the broader health-care legislation. • source

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before If you happened to have a pre-existing condition, you were charged higher premiums by your health-care provider. They sucked for millions of people.
soon? If Obama’s insurance plan goes through, insurance companies will drop the premiums like a bad habit. This is really good news for millions of people. source

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Why it needs to die Simply put, it’s too freaking big. Any company that posts a $61.5 billion loss in income in a single quarter – they lose more money in a minute that most of us see in a year – is too freaking big. Ever throw $400 grand into a fire, then do it again 150,000 times? It’s kind of like that.
Government control In exchange for yet another $30 billion bailout, two of AIG’s largest assets – American International Assurance and its Asian operations – will be directly owned by the government and will be sold. Taxpayers, who now largely own AIG, will reap the benefits – eventually.
A smaller, leaner AIGWhy is the government putting so much work into keeping the monster alive? Well, if they don’t, it will worsen the stock market collapse even further. But when the dust is settled, don’t expect the company – if it survives – to remain in its current form. It’s too freakin’ big. source

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$60 billion the projected quarterly loss the insurer plans to announce tomorrow – the largest ever. That sounds incredibly sucky, guys. :/
$30 billion amount the government plans to inject into AIG. Many consider the company necessary to keep alive to prevent economic collapse. source

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21 Oct 2009 22:45