Friday, February 10, 2017

How to achieve a competitive market?

In the past few weeks we've watched our courts block two giant mergers: Aetna-Humana, and Anthem-CIGNA. The reasons were the same.  The mergers would harm consumers by reducing competition and stifling innovation.

Aetna-Humana

"the government alleged that the merger of Aetna and Humana would be likely to substantially lessen competition in markets for individual Medicare Advantage plans and health insurance sold on the public exchanges," 

Anthem-CIGNA

"the merger is likely to result in higher prices, and [will have] other anticompetitive effects,” the judge wrote. “It will eliminate the two firms’ vigorous competition against each other for national accounts, reduce the number of national carriers available to respond to solicitations in the future, and diminish the prospects for innovation in the market.”

Isn't this wonderful news!  


Because now the American economy is prepared for a national, single-payer medical insurance program that will not lessen competition thereby benefiting consumers and stimulating innovation!


Wait.  What???
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