thequestionclub: Health Insurance: Must The Prices Fall?

Something that occurred to me about the "Obamacare" thing: part of the idea is that everyone buys health insurance so now with healthy people paying for health insurance the prices go down because the insurance companies are making better profits.

But why would the prices go down? I'm pretty sure the heath care law does not implement any price controls on insurance to force it down. And if everyone is required to buy something, why should you offer a discount on it? Isn't lowering prices about persuading people who weren't going to buy otherwise? Hell, if everyone has to have something why not raise the prices even higher? It's not like they have a choice.

I guess if the insurance companies keep their rates high, any insurance company that does lower rates (or a new insurance company offering lower rates) will in theory cause everyone to flock to that company. But surely all the major insurance companies can just agree among themselves to keep rates high and buy out any company who tries to offer lower rates?

Maybe I just have an inherent distrust of capitalism in general and legalized gambling i.e. health insurance in particular...

Source: http://thequestionclub.livejournal.com/109206014.html

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