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The government’s health care reform will likely shrink insurers’ profits margins, health care analysts said, because they will no longer be able to deny individuals with pre-existing conditions, and at the same time must limit how much they raise their rates.

Cigna bought HealthSpring earlier this year, and WellPoint last month announced plans to acquire Amerigroup.

Aetna is the nation’s third-largest insurance provider

The deal will help Aetna reduce overhead costs, and boost Coventry’s ability to market to more consumers on state-run health insurance exchanges. Exchanges are online marketplaces that states must build by 2014 to help consumers shop for plans offered by private insurers.

an ACA provision known as the medical loss ratio requires them to limit spending on administrative costs and salaries to 20 percen

“If you’re a business like Coventry and you’re only operating in certain states, you’d only be able to market in that particular state’s exchange,” Stember said. “Aetna already operates in 50 states

nursing homes, senior communities and other long-term care facilities will follow a similar path of consolidation because small and mid-size operators will struggle to afford compliance costs

But, five years in, as critics continue to emphasize, ACA still primarily serves as a huge government marketing campaign for private insurance companies, funneling millions of new customers with few if any restrictions on ever-escalating prices.

1. Bans insurance companies from dropping women when they get sick or become pregnant

2. Bans insurance companies from requiring women to obtain a pre-authorization or referral for access to ob-gyn care3. Improves the care of millions of older women with chronic conditions4. For women in new private plans, provides free coverage of mammograms and colonoscopies, one or more of which 20 million women have already received5. Beginning this summer, provides that free coverage will also include additional, comprehensive women's preventive services, including contraception in new plans6. Bans insurance companies from denying coverage for "pre-existing conditions," beginning in 2014. Currently, many women are denied coverage or charged more for such "pre-existing conditions" as breast or cervical cancer, pregnancy, having had a C-section, or having been a victim of domestic violence7. Ends the common practice of "gender rating," charging women substantially higher premiums than men for the same coverage, beginning in 20148. Provides greater access to affordable health coverage for women, with the establishment of new Health Insurance Exchanges for the millions who do not have health insurance through an employer, beginning in 2014. Currently, less than half of America's women can obtain affordable insurance through a job

After all is said and done, it appears that the relentless war on the Affordable Care Act by those who call it socialism has actually been, in large part, a war on women

In the US medical care has become a huge, competitive industry with many private investors, but with relatively little government regulation. Involving more than $2.7 trillion (£1.7 trillion; €2 trillion), the US healthcare industry now constitutes nearly 18% of our entire economy and it continues to expand.

No more than half of the US health economy involves investor owned organisations and institutions, but most of the others (so called not-for-profits) also see themselves as businesses competing for market share, so they act very much like their for-profit, investor owned competitors. Virtually all organisations and many physicians seek to maximise their income.

dependence of the US system on private for-profit insurance plans. Numbering in the hundreds, but increasingly being consolidated within a relatively few giant corporations

about a quarter of those over 65 have opted to have Medicare pay for their care through private plans

private insurance plans comprise a huge and growing industry, with a gross income of more than $800bn. Their profits and business overheads vary considerably but average between 15% and 25% of their premiums.

private insurance plans added over $150bn to the cost of healthcare in 2011.6 (The overhead expenses of Medicare are less than 5% of total expenditures.)

The recent movement of US physicians into large multispecialty groups suggests that this reorganisation of medical care may already be under way. If this trend continues, it could not only facilitate the enactment of legislation, but also help to make our medical care much more affordable and efficient.

bill, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed by the Democratic controlled Congress in March of 2010

many liberals, like me, have reservations.9

The law does contain major advances but, despite its name, it has no provisions that will reliably control rising costs.

group practices can deliver care more efficiently than unorganised physicians in solo or small, single specialty partnership practices who compete for income and depend on fee for service payment.11

substantial savings, as well as improved care, can be anticipated when primary care physicians collaborate with specialists in well organised groups

With so many physicians employed in multispecialty practices it would be much easier to institute new payment methods that replace insurance based reimbursement for itemised services with tax supported prepaid access to comprehensive care.

↵Angell ME. The epidemic of mental illness: Why? The New York Review, June 23, 2011:20-2.

↵Relman AS. In dire health. The American Prospect2012;23:34-7.