For the past several days, Democrats have acted in a state of self-righteous indignation excessive even by their standards. Following Donald Trump’s recent statement that he was considering alternatives to Obamacare, the left has resorted to high dudgeon over the supposed threat to “terminate” Americans’ health coverage should Trump win the White House next year.
Let us stipulate that the imprecise nature of the former president’s statements amounted to giving his opponents a bludgeon with which to beat him over the head ad nauseam. That said, news that broke a few days later, about a(nother) proposed merger between two of the nation’s largest health insurers, provides further evidence that, as Trump claimed in a follow-up social media post, “Obamacare sucks.”
Law Fueled Mergers and Consolidation
Trump made his original comments over the Thanksgiving weekend in response to a Wall Street Journal editorial discussing how the law has helped raise health care costs. The Journal editorial cited a letter that Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Mike Braun, R-Ind., sent to the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general just before the holiday.
The letter cited previous reporting that exposed how some insurers have charged patients inflated prices for generic drugs that should have cheap price tags. Even when insurance covers these drugs, higher prices mean that patients pay more — first, because (for instance) 10 percent co-insurance on a $200 drug is more than 10 percent co-insurance on a $20 drug, and second, because higher costs to insurers ultimately mean
