CIGNA stock price in 2010 was around $32 per share. It skyrocketed to near $300 as of November 2025. Amazing what guaranteed taxpayer support can do for your stock price.
What happens when ACA goes away? Free market capitalism!
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Free market? Competition?
We're in late stage capitalism where an oligopoly is not going to compete with itself. It will collude to increase prices and crush collective bargaining. Except the market is "free" to absolutely trample the majority of citizens without government stepping in.
The government decided it wants an oligopoly to compete at a global level and to receive kickbacks/dividends from "Big" players.
@er
Despite the initial marketing, the ACA wasn’t meant to solve problems or bring affordability to the market as a whole. It was simply a sneaky way to get health insurers to shoulder a huge part of the cost burden for another social welfare program.
The ACA didn’t cause a runaway increase in overall healthcare costs. It redistributed who pays — ostensibly making insurance cheaper for lower-income Americans (via subsidies) but costlier for middle-income people and the unsubsidized individual market.
Your auto insurer doesn’t pay for oil changes
Auto insurance also doesn't pay when your car breaks down due to lack of maintenance.
If it did, your insurer would require you to get them and drop you if you didn't.
Repealing the ACA won't magically fix the problems that the ACA was trying to solve.
Have you forgotten about pre-existing conditions?
That’s part of it, but a smaller part indeed.
The cost of college and student loan debt have both skyrocketed over the past several decades. Economic research suggests that an increased availability of student loans has enabled colleges to raise their tuition prices, a concept known as the "Bennett Hypothesis".
The Link Between Loans and Tuition
Increased Demand: When federal student loan limits expand, students' ability to pay (or their "purchasing power") increases, which in turn allows institutions to raise prices, confident that students can cover the cost through borrowing.
Empirical Evidence: A notable study by the New York Federal Reserve found that for every dollar increase in the subsidized federal student loan maximum, tuition increased by about 60 cents. The impact of loan availability on tuition prices varies over time, being most pronounced when students are "borrowing constrained".
Historical Context: The significant escalation in costs occurred largely prior to the mid-1990s. In the 1980s, when the "Bennett Hypothesis" was first articulated, passthrough rates were high because many students did not qualify for sufficient aid and were constrained in how much they could borrow. Subsequent expansions in loan programs temporarily reduced this constraint, lessening the immediate effect of further limit increases.
The reduction of state subsidies for education is the reason for the spikes in tuition the last few decades, not loans.
Moving to a free market will spark a bo-m in the number and variety of competitive plans. Let private companies compete with less government regulation and let consumers buy across state lines. We will see lower prices and improved quality through competition.
Health insurance is odd.
Your auto insurer doesn’t pay for oil changes, nor does your home insurer pay for lawn care.
If we had a true free market system, a colonoscopy couldn’t cost more than the market would dictate. Same for CT scans.
Health insurance should be for catastrophic events only.
Medical debt should be ineligible for discharge like student loans.
Government should ease the administration cost burden on providers.
Health maintenance should be out of pocket.
Yep! The answer is to repeal the ACA and let the free market work. Cigna should get ahead of this now.
Get rid of the ACA plans, covering everything. i.e childbirth coverage for single men.
Bring back the Catastrophic health insurance plans that only pay if you get cancer.
Look at what guaranteed student loans did to the price of college.
It’s the exact same thing and getting worse.