The case for regulation of business…
While UnitedHealth Group profits were soaring and its CEO was collecting more than a billion dollars in stock options, Nebraska doctors, hospitals and patients were experiencing frustrating claim payment problems, according to Department of Insurance records.
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“I understand good performance,” said Wagner. “But good performance ought to have some standards besides profitability.”
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Market concentration — a few companies with big market shares in a state — is a growing trend.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska had about 47 percent of the state’s health insurance market in 2004, and United had 22 percent, according to an American Medical Association national report. Nebraska is in a relatively good position, Wagner said. In some states one insurer has as much as 75 percent of the market, he said.
This concentration means physicians and hospitals have less negotiating power with the insurers. In Iowa, where Blue Cross Blue Shield has about 65 percent commercial penetration, “it’s my way or the highway,” said Filipi. “ You really can’t negotiate in that situation.”
Monopoly is an effective exercise of market power. Paying fines rather than paying claims is a rational business decision and thus a effective exercise of one’s “freedom”.
It increasingly sounds like we are going back in time by one century. Monopolies. Union busting. Rent capture by a privileged few. Growing inequality.
And the compliant media promoting it all as a good thing. Why is business behaving like a bad caricature of itself these days?
And where are our governments? Enforcing standards is their job.
