Mike Barnicle prefaced his remarks on Obamacare by saying his understanding was "meager." He was grossly . . . overstating his knowledge. The subject in the Morning Joe segment today was UnitedHealthCare's decision to quit the Obamacare exchanges. Dr. Dave Campbell explained that UnitedHealthcare was going to lose $1 billion on Obamacare this year, and that all other insurers were also losing money.
That's when Barnicle piped up: "my understanding of it, meager as it is: so it's the profit motive that's going to drive these insurance companies out of the exchanges. They have boards of directors. They can't figure out how to retool their approach to it in order to make [money]?" Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant, Mike! Why didn't UnitedHealthcare think of that? If there's a problem with that profit-motive thingy, just have the board of directors figure out a way to turn a profit. Problem solved!
Note: Apparently it hasn't occurred to Barnicle that when you're playing against the house--the government in this case--which gets to make the rules, it can be impossible to win. Indeed, some have speculated that President Obama and his fellow leftists designed Obamacare to fail so that there would be no alternative, at least in their eyes, to totally socialized medicine.
DR. DAVE CAMPBELL: What we know that's happening with UnitedHealthcare is the same as the canary in the coal mine. This is the first of many insurers that will bail out of the exchanges. It's already been stated by other insurers in their board meetings. Each insurer that is participating in the Affordable Care Act is losing money. And as we see UnitedHealthcare make reference to dropping three states already, more coming and most of them by the end of 2017, we know Blue Cross Blue Shield is close behind. We know that the large insurers are merging. We're going to have three large payers in the United States.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: You say they're all losing money? The insurers are all losing money?
CAMPBELL: Yes. They all are losing money. $1 billion has been lost by UnitedHealthcare by the end of this year.
MIKE BARNICLE: So, let me frame this up. From where I'm coming from on this, my understanding of it, meager as it is. So it's the profit motive that's going to drive these insurance companies out of the exchanges. They have boards of directors. They can't figure out how to retool their approach to it in order to make [money]?
