The parasites, protected by our Fascist government, will prosper and grow until the host is dead.

It occurs to me that I’m going to have to have a job before I can buy their crappy product and I have no reason to be optimistic that’s going to happen.

“strategize on how to take advantage of those opportunities”, is this like the banks did on fees. Keep an eye out on how well Chase does when folks move their money instead of paying $10 a month.

But but but O’s plan sucks less than the Rs’ plan would have.

That big Boogedly deficit is going to fly off the map then. All of us unemployed are going to have to have that, how should I say it–

Government Assistance!

I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot of scofflaws on the mandate.

LOL! Can’t wait to see the great washing myself.

Big Pharma and Big Hospital are drooling. Can you imagine what the Insurance bills are going to look like? 40K for an aspirin and 60K for a bandaid.

Yeah, well I’ve gotta be alive to be a scofflaw and the way things look at the moment, I will have starved or died of exposure long before the mandate kicks in.

YIKES! Get yourself over to the food bank, pronto!

Wait here is the next healthcare industry boom idea all illegal immigrants must buy private healthcare insurance and buy their drugs at American prices for 5 years before they can become citizens and if they want to keep their jobs.
Imagine all the profits the insurance companies can get!

Not in danger of starving yet. But by the time the mandate kicks in I will certainly be unless something radically changes.

120 bucks for a doctor to get something out of your ear? Oh wait that happened to me in august. $443 is what they wanted in late fees from august to december I asked for an itemized bill and suddenly I only have to pay $120.
I think the hospital thought I was an immigrant and by increasing my debt they could claim a bigger tax loss to the IRS.
When I complained they realized I was legal.

Private Insurance invests their cash in the stock market which as everyone here knows Obama despite promises did not reform. Any bets on when the next stock market collapse happens and what happens to private insurance if the banks can’t be bailed out again?
There is a limit to just how much the Fed and Obama can pay or juggle the books I think we reached the limit of our credit with the last bank bailout.

hows kittys food supply?need a filler upper?

She has plenty of food, thanks. :)

i used to date a guy,that was factor-er ,lent money,Big insurance was BIG into real estate ,where they lost a heap of money

good just give a holer ,when ya need it,scritches to kitty

Yep. Insurance is into all sorts of things. Especially that Commerical Real Estate. Notice all those empty strip malls?

I think I’ll lose my internet access long before she runs out! Thanks to your gift and what I already had on hand.

they lost vast fortunes in real estate…..Master of the Universe my ass….

good,anything else looking up in the job market?

Oh yeah, but don’t worry. Thanks to our government they will be “solid as a rock”!

What are the fools investing in now or are they more diversified? A losing gambler who just lost big tends to bet big when feeling lucky in order to make up for past losses.
Are they still gamblers China and Emerging markets or the various bank ponzai schemes or are they really diversified.
If they all bought the same thing and we knew what they bought if that market goes down we would have some warning that private insurance is doomed.

oh yeah, O sure takes care of the investors part of things…

people? not so much…

They are still in commercial real estate???

i dont know,but i used to go with the guy to evaluate real estate deals,and i ALWAYS thought they were over valuing the property,but that guy did biz with them for 20 years through Fl.s booms and busts in real estate

Some yes, mostly lots of different things. They buy and trade and short just like the other playas. Oil, metals, medical equipment, new drug releases, etc.

Thanks anyway its just more stuff we have to research still if PeasantParty is right about commercial real estate then all those east coast states with snow over the holidays that they didn’t plow because they cut back workers?
Well the Holiday season is the shopping season and many retail stores only go into the black on the holidays.
Less Shopping days because the Government was to cheap to plow the roads and much of that retail, commercial real estate goes empty after taxes.
I expect east coast private insurers to start having money problems in a few months I am not sure how long they can hide losses from their books.

Oil, metals, medical equipment, new drug releases, etc.

Guess or fact because Oil, metals, medical equipment, new drug releases, all depend on a good economy and people buying stuff.
Another economic shock like the bank bailout and demand for product will go down.
Expect Ramen noodles, pawn shops, gold to do well. I wonder if they are buying rare earth metals because they are going up an economic downturn and those prices can crash real fast.

boggles the mind

Nope. Naught but a big jump in unemployment claims now that the retailers don’t need the temporary people they hired to exploit for their profits.

A homeless jobless family moved to CA from OK. More commimg all the time according to Social Services. Two cute kids under 5 with young dad. I gave them website and organization to contact and apply to.
This is a full blown depression and with state cuts it will be worse in 2011. What can we do?

Yes in the real world business depends on the government to do its job or business can’t do theirs. Government can be the solution not the problem so Reagan was wrong proven wrong by Real World examples.
Reagan was also wrong that a lack of government regulation is better than regulation. A lack of government is always a problem whether its poison Chinese cat food, American eggs, a lack of inspections on oil wells, no regulation of WallStreet or how states invest retirement funds, no plan to save New Orleans etc.

What can we do?

Try to weather it I suppose. The jobs aren’t coming back and the leadership caste is doing just fine, thank you. It’s hard for normally optimistic me to retain any hope at all. I’m at a loss.

Don’t Worry, Private Health Insurers Will Be Just Fine

Well, that’s a relief. I’ll sure sleep better tonight. /s

Frankly, I don’t know how private insurance companies wouldn’t be able to find a way to capitalize on this opportunity.

Since your prior employers can have insurance out on you without your knowledge, maybe this is Fed_speak for additional creative insurance products besides the ‘dead peasants’ insurance and “secured viaticals“? Or, these things were baked into CDSs and CDOs and the public doesn’t know it? If there’s the approximate $5 – 20 Trillion off-balance sheet debt the banksters et al are hiding, the sky’s the limit for such “innovations” in investment instruments! I’d be looking at the bonds market specifically given the zero trade volume going on in the stock market since at last summer.

Hmmm … Take a gander at what Wendell Potter says in this interview that touches on how insurance companies may or may not be making a net profit if there really is a $5 – 20 Trillion off-balance sheet debt as Keiser says:

12:12 Wendell Potter: During the heyday of managed care back in the 90s and early part of the 2000s, private insurers did a fairly good job of controlling health care costs. But the big for–profits, in particular, were ham-fisted in their relationships with both doctors and their enrollees. So much so that there was a backlash against managed care. Insurers had to loosen their networks and restrictions, meaning they lost their ability to control costs as they had promised. Now they are trying to do that by shifting more and more of the cost of care to consumers. That is not sustainable in the long haul.

(excerpt from “Chat Replay: Wendell Potter, Health Insurance Industry Whistleblower, Discusses Health Insurance In America,” in The Hartford Courant, Jan. 6, 2011)

Just opened a letter from Aetna. 12.7% increase. My Social Security hasn’t increased in two years but health care inflation is 12+%? I’d love a COLA like that. This is on top of a 17% increase ahead of the wonderful Obamacare “reform.”

Thanks for the “reassuring” post. The health insurance business model is unsustainable over the long term, because the finite resources of the middle class can’t pay for ever-increasing premiums forever. But “reform” seems to have saved these bandits over the short term.

The government subsidies are going to become Medicare fraud all over again. Hmm? Taxpayers are going to susidize a monopolistic industry with a government enforced captive market. Who couldn’t become billionares running a business scam like this?

The infrastructure it will take to force Americans to get health care will have to be quite extensive and expensive. First of all their will be huge misunderstandings about who is subsidized and who is not. This will fall to some kind of Welfare like program. Since you will have to qualify, you’re talking like a whole new agency to make these decisions. That would include like a whole new branch of government services. This will include an appeal system and also a system to decide who is actually not complying with the law because they simply didn’t do as ordered, buy insurance, and who is not buying insurance because they don’t have the income to do so. Sounds like a butt load of dockets and infrastructure to me.

What would happen if we just took all the money this is going to take and got people medical care in a single payer system? Of course , everyone knows this would actually lift all boats and make huge strides in wealth inequality. But of course the American medical system is the number one tool for putting all wealth in the hands of the few.

Everyone gets old, sick, and dies. Eventually every single one of us will find our self in the position of inheriting NOTHING from our parents as one by one they fall pray to not being able to work or support their health care before death for what ever reason. Meaning their assets will be lifted upon death as is he case when the elderly seek services now through end of life welfare programs. It may take a generation or two but that’s about all that’s left in this end game.

Insurance companies will do just fine. They’re currently busy denying coverage to anyone with even the slightest health history and pushing them into the temporary “high-risk” pools. They’ll end up with the healthiest customers and the taxpayers will have to subsidize everyone else in the “exchanges.” Mission Accomplished.