The Massive UnitedHealth Hack Is Obamacare’s Fault and That’s No Lie

The following content material is sponsored by Americans for Limited Government.

Remember that second 15 years in the past when then President Barack Obama promised that his plan for socialized medication wouldn’t lengthen to unlawful aliens, and Rep. Joe Wilson yelled out, “You lie!” Remember how Democrats and their media enablers all denounced Wilson each for his lack of decorum and for mendacity himself?

Wilson was unsuitable on the time. Not about calling out Obama for mendacity about Democrats’ plan to steal taxpayer cash to give to their future voters; he was unsuitable to not say “You lie!” at each line that got here out of Obama’s mouth. Even NPR gave Obama the “Lie of the Year” award in 2013 over Obamacare, and NPR only employs Democrats.

The ridiculously named Affordable Care Act (ACA) turns 15 years previous subsequent March. It is the crowning instance of the Democrats saying that they simply! need! to! assist! individuals! however passing energy grabs that solely assist themselves. Obama even discovered a solution to twist the pejorative “Obamacare” into the catch-phrase, “Yes, Obama cares!”

Much like pre-Team America Iraq, the ACA was promised to make hospitals throughout America blissful locations with rainbow skies and rivers made from chocolate, the place youngsters dance and snort and play with gumdrop smiles! However, what we’ve gotten as a substitute is incompetence, huge earnings for vertically built-in insurance coverage firms, and even AI-backed healthcare rationing.

The incompetence that guided Obamacare was on show lately when cyber hackers outsmarted UnitedHealth Group in late February. The division of UnitedHealth Group that transmits claims, Change Healthcare, was the topic of a ransomware attack, delaying funds for prescriptions, docs, and all the things else. The firm performs 15 billion transactions per yr, so the results of UnitedHealth ignoring sufficient cybersecurity is proving disastrous.

The cyberattack is such a giant deal that the Senate Finance Committee subsequent week is holding a hearing on the topic, the place they may (one hopes) maintain the toes of UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty to the fireplace. The House Energy and Commerce Committee will maintain a similar hearing on May 1.

The most evident query to ask is, “How can you not afford decent cybersecurity?” UnitedHealth has been raking in file earnings due to Obamacare. Last yr, its web earnings had been $22.4 billion, and it’s within the operating to turn into the primary healthcare conglomerate with a $1 trillion market cap.

So, it looks like the corporate might afford some white hats. It elevated premiums 13 p.c final yr, so that cash has to go someplace, proper? Certainly not into the pockets of CEO Witty, who simply made a modest $25 million final yr.

It seems you may get away with fairly a bit while you’re a government-backed monopoly.

One of the explanations UnitedHealth pulls in its file earnings is as a result of it rations care. The firm used AI to systemically deny benefits to people by an middleman known as NaviHealth. Insurance monopolies like UnitedHealth are more and more attempting to regulate each step of affected person care, and know-how is making that straightforward for them. So, when you’re one of many 52 p.c of Americans worried about the way forward for AI, don’t fear: the dangerous stuff is already right here.

It might worsen although.

From 2019 to 2022, AARP spent greater than $60 million to push a “rent seeking” provision within the Inflation Reduction Act – laws so dishonestly named that it makes the Affordable Care Act virtually sound sincere. This provision permits Medicare to have interaction in so-called “negotiations” with pharmaceutical producers over costs.  The downside is that making firms a proposal they will’t refuse by imposing a 95 p.c tax on them in the event that they don’t agree isn’t a negotiation in any respect. And AARP’s victory lap article left it unsaid how these negotiation necessities would profit non-public insurers who subsidize AARP. Moreover, the IRA expands subsidies beneath ACA to personal insurance coverage suppliers, which is able to assist pad these billion-dollar earnings much more.

Free market coverage advocacy group American Commitment President Phil Kerpen wrote, “Under the IRA insurers like UnitedHealth are in line for a financial windfall with super-sized subsidies for Obamacare policies and government price controls dictating pricing of many medicines.”

(He doesn’t lie.)

Obamacare is twenty first century snake oil. It looks like when Obama stated: “If you like your plan, you can keep it,” “This won’t cover illegal aliens,” “This won’t add a dime to the deficit,” and even “Obama cares,” what he meant was: “We will make your healthcare a badly run vertically integrated monopoly that will withhold care, enrich executives, and expose you to hackers.”

Both Obama and Wilson are nonetheless in DC, so perhaps it’s time for a rematch. This time, Wilson can simply say, “I told you so.”