It’s time for a little history of ObamaCare review. The Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare, was passed in 2010 without a single Republican vote. This entirely Democratic restructuring of our healthcare system was promised to lower premiums for the average American family by $2500 at least by President Obama. He also promised “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” These promises and more never happened.
What did happen was for hospitals and insurance companies to grow by leaps and bounds. If you look around your city, you’ll probably note hospitals have built larger and larger buildings using the profits of this healthcare restructuring, thanks to Democrats.
Fast forward to 2026 and now these same Democrats are now selling themselves as the solution to the problem they created. The Wall Street Journal editorial board calls out Texas Democratic Senate hopeful James Talaric for his hypocrisy which was on display recently.
“Who knew Jesus was an antitrust lawyer? So sayeth Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico who recently invoked his Lord and Savior in his campaign to “break up these big healthcare monopolies.” You have to chuckle at Democrats campaigning to crush the trusts they created. Mr. Talarico held an event with billionaire Mark Cuban in which he laid out a plan to break up vertically integrated healthcare companies. “Healthcare corporations are ripping us off—jacking up premiums and profiting off our pain,” he said. Later he suggested that breaking up the companies is what Jesus would do.”
Talarico fashions himself as an authority on the Bible, even though he once said, “God is non-binary.” I doubt he has any idea “what Jesus would do.” He goes on, ““Go back and see what Jesus spends most of his time doing. It’s not preaching, it’s not teaching, it’s healing,” Mr. Talarico said. “And that is going to be the end result of this plan.”
The WSJ editors tell us the Senate hopeful cited reports claiming that 90% of U.S. hospital beds are controlled by large hospital systems, and three pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) process some 80% of prescriptions. Healthcare consolidation has increased and is driving up prices. But government policies, especially ObamaCare, have driven the consolidation.
Start with the 2010 law’s medical-loss ratio, which requires insurers to spend at least 80% to 85% of premium dollars on medical care. This drove insurers to combine with providers, PBMs and pharmacies, and to steer revenue to these affiliates to dodge this de facto profit cap. Senate Democrats admit as much in a recent healthcare white paper.
“Consolidation and vertical integration accelerated in the late 2010s as large for-profit insurers acquired providers, pharmacies, and PBMs,” the paper notes. The medical loss ratio “created unintended incentives for insurers to expand” into other markets “to maximize profits.”
A study this year by University of Chicago and Northwestern researchers found evidence that ObamaCare’s profit cap spurred insurers to combine with providers and shift profits to affiliates. The result: Higher prices and out-of-pocket costs for patients. The medical-loss ratio has also contributed to higher drug costs.
I have no doubt that ObamaCare has created these problems. But why would voters choose to vote for the same people who created this mess in the first place! That’s like calling the arsonists to put out the fire they started!
The WSJ editors say the solution to all this isn’t to break up the companies. It’s to repeal the regulations that prevent more market competition. Pressure from large employers is already prompting insurers and PBMs to move away from the rebate-model and increase transparency on fees.
ObamaCare also turbocharged consolidation among providers such that only 42% of physicians now work in private practice, compared to 60% in 2012. (Some surveys put that number above 70%.) Most physicians are now employed by large hospital or provider groups, often owned by private-equity firms. ObamaCare’s subsidies for so-called accountable care organizations increased the incentive for hospitals to acquire physician practices. The Medicaid expansion resulted in more nonprofit hospitals becoming eligible for the 340B program, which lets them buy medicines at large discounts and sell them at steep markups.
Also, the 340B program provides an incentive for nonprofit hospitals to expand to increase revenue from this government-created drug price arbitrage. Hospitals also receive higher reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid than physician practices. That’s another incentive for physicians to link up with hospitals.
The WSJ editors explain, “Breaking up insurers would do nothing to fix the perverse regulatory incentives that fuel higher healthcare spending. It would merely give more leverage to giant hospitals, which are the biggest contributors to higher costs. Since 2010, hospital prices have increased at about twice the rate of inflation and three times as fast as prescription drug prices. The left’s ultimate goal for the dysfunctions caused by regulation is a single-payer system in which bureaucrats in Washington determine what treatments you can receive. If Mr. Talarico were honest, he’d acknowledge as much. That’s what Jesus would do.”
