Let's not forget Jonathan Gruber's comments, who was a technical consultant for building ACA, that it was the stupidity of the American voter that got this passed due to the intentional lack of transparency with it. They lied about the real costs and how it would work.

Anyone with a modicum of critical thought knew that but most voters rely on emotion, unfortunately.

WAPO is just confirming what Gruber said over a decade ago - the only way it can somehow work is if all of the healthy people pay in to cover everyone else. You know, like insurance. And they will continue to push that as the reason why it's still high cost now because most of the healthy people are still in corporate or group plans and not in the game.

Their reasoning will be: we need to put everyone in UHC which will then spread the costs and everything will get cheaper. Sure, sure. So then you would have insurance (which already sucks hard in the private market) now run by the federal government. Imagine your nightmares with private insurance and multiply that 10x if it's the government on the other end of the statement.

I’m really sick of hearing this - the government is not subsidizing people. They’re subsidizing insurance companies.

The American people are paying thousands upon thousands of dollars for a product that is - for all intents and purposes - useless.

United Healthcare, whose… https://t.co/sy96ie6I1S

— Heath Veuleman (@HeathVeuleman) October 8, 2025

Quote:

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I'm really sick of hearing this - the government is not subsidizing people. They're subsidizing insurance companies.

The American people are paying thousands upon thousands of dollars for a product that is - for all intents and purposes - useless.

United Healthcare, whose revenue is about ~50% dependent upon government subsidies, denies ~33% of claims (2023 data).

Aetna denies ~29% of claims (2023 data).

Blue Cross Blue Shield (aggregate across states) denies ~18% of claims (2023 data).

Elevance, Cigna, and Centene denies ~16-17% of claims (2023 data).

Humana, which when you consider their military benefits administration, is basically a government payer denies ~12% (2023 data).

And of all denied insurance claims, in the entire United States, only ~1% of them are appealed. And of those appealed only ~46% of that 1% are overturned.

Health insurance is a scam. It's a farce.

The subsidy isn't for the patient. And the physicians don't get paid - at all - ~20% of the time.

And when they do get paid, there's always some kind of adjustment lowering the reimbursement; and it takes - on average - 71 days to get paid!

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TRM said:

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I’m really sick of hearing this - the government is not subsidizing people. They’re subsidizing insurance companies.

The American people are paying thousands upon thousands of dollars for a product that is - for all intents and purposes - useless.

United Healthcare, whose… https://t.co/sy96ie6I1S

— Heath Veuleman (@HeathVeuleman) October 8, 2025

Quote:

---

I'm really sick of hearing this - the government is not subsidizing people. They're subsidizing insurance companies.

The American people are paying thousands upon thousands of dollars for a product that is - for all intents and purposes - useless.

United Healthcare, whose revenue is about ~50% dependent upon government subsidies, denies ~33% of claims (2023 data).

Aetna denies ~29% of claims (2023 data).

Blue Cross Blue Shield (aggregate across states) denies ~18% of claims (2023 data).

Elevance, Cigna, and Centene denies ~16-17% of claims (2023 data).

Humana, which when you consider their military benefits administration, is basically a government payer denies ~12% (2023 data).

And of all denied insurance claims, in the entire United States, only ~1% of them are appealed. And of those appealed only ~46% of that 1% are overturned.

Health insurance is a scam. It's a farce.

The subsidy isn't for the patient. And the physicians don't get paid - at all - ~20% of the time.

And when they do get paid, there's always some kind of adjustment lowering the reimbursement; and it takes - on average - 71 days to get paid!

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Case in point. This screed ignores so much crucial detail behind how insurance claims are filed and adjudicated by payers. It's easy to paint insurers as the bad guys for political posturing. The facts are that providers often charge prices above the contracted price. Providers sometimes charge for medically unnecessary treatments. This guy wants a return to fee-for-service reimbursement, where insurers just pay whatever's on the claim, no questions asked. That ship sailed over 40 years ago and it's not coming back.