RUSH: UnitedHealth is going to cut back even more Obamacare exchanges and end up being in just a handful of states. UnitedHealth happens to be the — and, by the way, it’s right on schedule, all of this. You can say, “Mission accomplished!” When the private sector insurance industry is unable to stay in business, that is Obamacare mission accomplished. Now, it’s not being reported that way by the AP. It’s being reported, “Oh, no! Oh, no! This is a tragedy! Oh, no. Obamacare does not work?”
No, no. It’s working exactly as designed.
Here are the details: “UnitedHealth, the nation’s biggest health insurer, will cut its participation in public health insurance exchanges to only a handful of states next year after expanding to nearly three dozen for this year.” They are cutting way back. “CEO Stephen Hemsley said Tuesday that … the company cannot continue to broadly serve the market created by [Obamacare]’s coverage expansion due partly to the higher risk that comes with its customers.”
What is that, “higher risk that comes with its customers”? The American people are higher risk? What is this? Why, Obamacare was gonna lower everybody’s premiums $2,500! Obamacare was gonna be free for many people, so they thought. We were going to insure the uninsured. What was some of the other magic that was gonna happen? Oh, if you liked your plan and your doctor? Slam-Dunk City! You get to keep both. Except you didn’t; you couldn’t. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, and the big one: “Your kids can stay on your policy until they’re 26!”
How many of you look at your 26-year-old freeloader in the basement and think of them as your kids? But this actually is one of the most attractive aspects of Obamacare, as it turns out. I shouldn’t sit here and mock it, because I’m sure many parents in this audience very much appreciate that because their kids otherwise “wouldn’t have health care.” Insurance. They wouldn’t have insurance. You know, I have a question. This is just an example of a thought process I have.
It seems like for the last 15 years every so often — certainly every year, and maybe many times a year — we get stories on how things are so tight economically that more and more children, young adults are living with their parents. Okay, no comment on that, but my question is: At what point will that become impossible because the kids are not gonna have homes of their own for their kids to come back to? In other words, if you’re still 35 and living at home, and you get married and have kids…? Oh, wait. And you have kids. You don’t have to get married for that anymore.
You have kids, okay. But at some point, mom and dad, what happens? We’re reaching the point of no return here where the phenomenon of children moving home with mom and dad won’t be possible because mom and dad are not gonna have homes. (interruption) No, it is the point. (interruption) You’re missing my point. You’re… (interruption) Snerdley says, “No, they wait for mom and dad to kick off and then they get the house.” There’s not a house. The 35-year-olds living at home don’t ever buy houses. They don’t have a home.
They rent apartments or whatever. You realize, for all of these kids that still move home or move back home live with their parents, something has to happen. The parents have to have a house. The parents have to have a means of paying for the house or they own it outright. They have to have a means of making the mortgage payment. But at some point, all these kids that move in with their parents, they aren’t gonna have homes, because they’re… (interruption) Oh, you think they’ll inherit the house?
Oh, so you’re saying they are waiting for mom and pop to pass on and they inherit the house? Now they have a house? (interruption) Now they have a house, right. What if the house isn’t paid for? (interruption) Yeah, I know, but what if the house isn’t paid for? My question still stands. I mean, the geometrical progression of this, at some point there aren’t gonna be any homes to move back to, and then what are the 35 years old gonna do? Cardboard box it? Shopping Cart City? (interruption) Yeah, yeah, yeah. (interruption) The “what” market? (interruption) The rental market?
Oh, it is sky high! In fact, I saw a story the other day that the wealthiest of the wealthy in the United Kingdom are now renting instead of buying. I didn’t have enough time to read why, but I just saw the phenomenon. Anyway, back to this Obamacare story. UnitedHealth “CEO Stephen Hemsley said Tuesday that … the company cannot continue to broadly serve the market created by [Obamacare]’s coverage expansion due partly to the higher risk that comes with its customers. The state-based exchanges are a key element behind the [Obamacare]’s push to expand insurance coverage.
“But insurers have struggled with higher than expected claims from that business. UnitedHealth has estimated that it could lose as much as $475 million on its public exchange business this year…” Now, stop and think, folks. Wait a minute, now. Before you applaud an American corporation losing money, stop and wait a minute. This is an industry which supposedly benefits from a law requiring that every American buy its product. So what’s going on here?
If every American is required to buy health insurance, how in the name of Sam Hill can UnitedHealth or any other insurance company lose money? And what they’re telling us is that the customers are making these outlandish claims, many claims much higher than expected. Why would that be? Well, they can’t afford it, for one thing. But many of them think that it’s free, that other people are paying. So they’re going to the hospital or they’re going to the doctor record numbers of times. But here’s the bottom line.
This is mission accomplished.
This is exactly what was planned.
This is exactly what was intended. Precisely. And it’s right on schedule. What are we now in? Obamacare was passed in 2010 and here we are 2016, so we’re in the seventh year, and between years seven and 10 this was to fully implement. And part of the full implementation was to include the elimination of the private sector insurance market. Now, I realize that many of you are new listeners and may not have been around in 2010, ’11, and ’12 during the intense discussions of Obamacare.
You might be thinking “Wa…? What’s this guy talking about? He claims it’s supposed to happen? Obamacare is supposed to wipe out private insurance?” Yes. Exactly right. “But no, no! Obama wanted to bring health insurance to everyone.” No, that’s not what Obamacare’s about. Obamacare’s not about health care. It’s not about insurance. All it is, is a mechanism to vastly expand the government and give the government more control over your life — over what you eat, over how you live, over the decisions you make about everything — because they’re gonna be able to relate everything to health in terms of cost.
So if you eat things they don’t think you should eat, they can say, “Sorry, we’re not gonna provide treatment for this particular disease because you have made no effort to take care of yourself according to our guidelines.” They don’t have an endless pile of money, bottomless pit of money to pay for every health malady in the country.
But the whole point here was for the private sector insurance industry to be wiped out and for there to be an accompanying crisis, ’cause when UnitedHealth leaves the business, when they close exchanges in a whole lot of states — and they’re the biggest one — and when it gets tougher and tougher and tougher to obey the law, which is that you have to have health insurance, it gets tougher and tougher and tougher to buy a health insurance policy, particularly ’cause it’s unaffordable or unavailable or there’s nobody selling one, you’re then, according to the plan, supposed to start panicking, because, remember, health care is a right.
And if you get sick, you’ll die. That’s what they told you. You get sick, automatically means you’re gonna do die. The objective is not to get sick, not die. Obama’s in charge and so you’re supposed to panic when you can’t get insurance because you can’t afford to get sick, and you demand the government do something, even though the government is who screwed it up. The government, the Obama administration are the architects of the entire breakup of the greatest health care system in the world.
When that happens — and we’re beginning to see it now — you’re supposed to panic and demand the government do something. That will be music to Obama’s ears. At that point, somebody will pop up and say, “You know what? There’s only one way to fix this. The government’s just gonna have to take over everything. The government will provide insurance. The government will provide and dictate the kind of health care you get, and we’ll call it single payer. Maybe we’ll just expand Medicare to include everybody.” And people will go, “Yay, yay,” ’cause a crisis will have been averted.
And once again the government will be seen as having ridden to the rescue to save people from dying by saving people from getting sick, by enabling people to get treated when they get sick. And the American population, the low-information crowd, will be applauding the very people who have destroyed the health care system. And they will be applauding the government taking advantage of it and exerting even more control over daily life in the country under the guise of protecting people and saving people and rescuing people and so forth and.
This is how the left does it. They target industries they say are capitalist frauds. They target industries and put ’em on the enemies list and claim they’re the reason that all the problems in the country exist, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Retail, you name it, government targets them, gets people hating on ’em, gets people despising them, gets people thinking that big corporations actually want to kill their customers.
The government comes in, devises new plans to keep these big corporations to heel, keep them in tow so they don’t hurt people. The government mandates end up destroying elements of the businesses, government swoops in to take over, under the guise of saving people and caring about the average guy.
In the meantime, what actually is happening is the wanton destruction of great industries, great traditions, great institutions, which have made the country great. And it’s now beginning to happen right on schedule with Obamacare. So UnitedHealth encountering great financial difficulty, being unable to operate in more and more states, having to pull out of more and more exchanges, is mission accomplished.