Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Jon Walker — The ACA is Failing Because It Didn’t Account For Hospital Monopolies in Rural Areas

The logic behind the design of the Affordable Care Act does not hold up well when faced with the reality of how markets actually work outside cities. ACA exchanges were built on the fundamental idea that competition between regulated private insurance companies would improve quality and hold down prices, but competition is lacking in most rural counties. That’s very unlikely to ever change....
The Intercept
The ACA is Failing Because It Didn’t Account For Hospital Monopolies in Rural Areas
Jon Walker

5 comments:

Matt Franko said...

I think Trump is still holding back the mortgage payments that the GSEs hold in their own reserve accounts from the insurers... I have not seen anything where he directed the GSEs to give the munnie to the health insurers... with everything else going on this one might fall thru the cracks...

Dan Lynch said...

Jon is right. Also this:

"In contrast, when the Swiss adopted a law mandating individuals buy health insurance in 1994, the law also contained provisions giving the government power to set standard provider rates."

Several European countries have some form of Romney-care that mostly works, but they all involve heavy government regulation of the markets.

Matt Franko said...

Looks like Trump did the debt ceiling deals with Dems:

https://twitter.com/cernovich/status/905476222720675840

Matt Franko said...

Trump could change party, dont put it past him...

Noah Way said...

"built on the fundamental idea that competition between regulated private insurance companies"

Bullshit. The competition between insurance companies is the same kind of monopolistic vaporware as making a choice between ATT and Verizon. In fact the entire premise of insurance networks is to eliminate competition altogether. If there was any real competition you would be able pick any health care provider you wanted to without restriction.