Health Insurer Merger Mania -- Muscle-Bound Competitors And A New Cold War In Health Care

It is doubtful that the dramatically escalating consolidation in both the health insurance industry and among hospitals and doctors will make our health care system either more efficient or more competitive.

This reminds me of the Cold War. Each side gets more powerful so that the other side can’t come to dominate it. The two sides finally get so big and powerful they reach a point of détente—let’s just agree to get along. Or, in the case of the Cold War, one side just ultimately spends the other side into submission.

That kind of environment doesn’t create more efficiency or innovation but undermines real competition just like you would expect one oligopoly facing off against another to do. We just end up with a few muscle bound players creating sizable barriers for new innovative and disruptive players to enter.
Read more on my Post at Forbes

California Senate Votes To Open Up Obamacare To 2.5 Million Illegal Residents

King V. Burwell Opponents Said Killing Subsidies Would Blow Up Obamacare­­––Now They Want To Open Up Unsubsidized Care To Illegal Californians

And consider this. Passage of the California legislation that has already cleared the Senate (SB 4) could be a real boon to the business of health care delivery in California. California’s impressive medical system could be the leader in international medical tourism. SB 4 would also make it clear that a foreign person could land at LAX, give Covered California a call and sign up for an almost full pay Platinum plan for a few hundred dollars a month, on the first of the following month when their coverage became effective show up at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and have thousands of dollars of treatment, get back on the plane and go home, and then drop the coverage.

See my post at Forbes

Could Humana Grovel Any More To Get the Aetna-Humana Merger Approved By the Obama Administration?

See my post at Forbes