The #Obamacare plan in action: another major insurer pulls out of another state

**Posted by Phineas

This time, it’s Medical Mutual, which insures about 28,000 people in South Carolina:

The second-largest health insurance company in South Carolina is pulling out of the state at the end of the year because of the Affordable Care Act. Medical Mutual of Ohio is the parent company of the Carolina Care plan, which insures about 28,000 people in South Carolina.

The company is also pulling out of Georgia and Indiana. Medical Mutual spokesman Ed Byers says, “Under new regulations, which are vast and quite complex, it is in our best interest to focus on our core market of Ohio where we are headquartered and have been doing business successfully for nearly 80 years.”

He says the 28,000 people who are members of the Carolina Care plan will be transitioned to United Healthcare, and they’ve all been notified of that.

South Carolina Insurance Director Ray Farmer says the loss of the state’s second-largest health insurer could raise rates for everyone. “If you have less competition, not only in insurance but in any marketplace, it could result in higher rates. I don’t think there’s going to be a big groundswell of other companies leaving the marketplace, though,” he says.

You know, I could have sworn someone once said something about this kind of thing. What was it, again? Oh, yeah:

Suckers.

Sure, their plans are transferred to United, but are the plans the same and, if they are, will they stay the same? And what if the policyholder simply liked dealing with Medical Mutual and doesn’t want to switch. Particularly with the elderly or those facing serious medical problems, stability is important, and this, which creates uncertainty and anxiety, doesn’t help.

Not to mention the rising premiums.

But let’s make something clear, here: this is something Obamacare proponents want. Maybe not all, but a significant portion of the beyond-liberal-left, which hates insurance companies with a passion. While many progressives, fearful of rising public anger at election time, will say Obamacare should be fixed and (maybe) even rolled back in parts, these dysfunctional results are what many more want, even though they’ll never say so outside of friendly audiences. It’s the Cloward-Piven strategy of non-reforming reforms applied to health care: Knowing that once Obamacare is established and people are receiving subsidies, it will be damned difficult to undo this monstrosity regardless of its dysfunctions, and their hope is that the people will be open to a fix in the other direction: full-blown single-payer government controlled healthcare. To quote Stanley Kurtz, who’s written the book on Obama:

[W]hen President Obama says “Go for it” to Republicans who hope to repeal his health-care-reform law, he means it. Those who already see Obama as a socialist tend to think of his insistence on backing health-care reform in the face of collapsing political support as the suicidal impulse of a true ideologue. It’s more likely that Obama has a long-term class-based realignment strategy in mind. Obama would love the Republicans to try to take away the health care he’s offered to millions of uninsured. Taking a leaf from the Cloward-Piven [socialist] handbook, Obama hopes that a Republican campaign for repeal will ignite a political movement of the poor that will energize and radicalize the Democratic Party.

And of course, that radicalized movement will push for single-payer and a total takeover of health care by the government.

Hey, if you don’t believe Kurtz and me, just ask “Red” Jan Schakowski (D-IL), who makes the ultimate goal very clear:

So, don’t be fooled; when insurance companies leave the market, it’s all part of the plan.

via Bryan Preston

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)