What do you with a problem like collaborators? A modern tale of political economy.

This just in:  well it's been predicted by lots of people but the Obami just non-announced it:  the individual mandate is gone.  Probably forever.  I mean it's been over four years and if the Dems are so frightened of the law that they passed (well admittedly without reading it so they had to pass it to see what was inside it) when it was fresh out of the box then do you really going to implement it in 2016 like the new 'reg' says?  Repubs sure as hell won't.

Now aside from the obvious problem that the decision not to implement this among at least 20 other provisions of a duly passed law is a crime, indeed a whole bunch of crimes, it's also a serious problem for the collaborators.  Specifically the insurance companies that jumped onto the hope 'n change bandwagon at full flood (yes I know it's a mixed metaphor but I like it) in the belief that it would:

1. Force lots of new people to buy their product at gun- or 1040-point,
2. Get huge new government subsidies for their product,
3. Drive major new regulation which would drive out all but a handful of their competitors and enforce a very profitable oligopoly,
4. Blow up the expensive individual market distribution system and replace it with a coerced, mandatory but much cheaper distribution system with vastly less competition,
5. Force tens of millions of people to buy more coverage than they would have on their own account,
6. Persuade businesses to shift tens of millions of (low margin, highly competitive) group enrollees to the new, higher margin, profit guaranteed individual market. 

You have to sympathize with the Big Insurance Big Guys.  I mean the rewards for collaborating with the Corporatist Obami were so lush that if you chose not to 'play ball' your investors would have seriously questioned your sanity.  And the Obami were playing your game:  asking you what you wanted to support the bill and making sure that you got it.  No matter what problems the dumbass Congress had in knowing what was in it, your lobbyists knew exactly what you were getting.  And above all what you were getting was the holy grail of all 'casualty' insurance:  coerced universal participation.  Without that, the rest of the deal was shit.  Because coerced universal participation meant two things:  first of all it made the sums balance out - the healthy young were going to have to pay for this thing one way or the other so it's best that the guns and shackles come out at the start.  Second, universal participation meant huge numbers of losers if the Republicans ever tried to reverse it.  Get enough people pregnant with this thing and there won't be any abortion.

And therein lies the rub.  Every collaborator's nightmare, whether they be Hiwis in WW2, ARVN officers in Vietnam or Puppet Presidents the world over, the big question is: "Okay, collaborating with the incoming regime is the easiest way in the world to get power and make a ton of money, but what happens if the bully boys and their guns disappear?  After all, our power and money is not based upon the support of the people who if we do this will increasingly hate us, no our power and money rests solely on the guns and shackles of the regime which rest solely on the regime's will to see this through no matter how much their victims oppose it.  So if they falter the whole thing is likely to go down in a whoosh and if we haven't salted enough a way in a bolt-hole somewhere we'll get whooshed too. Hmm.  Tricky."

Well it turns out that President Obama and co are at best petty tyrants in a game requiring sterner stuff and not even particularly good politicians and as a result they have folded so often that DC looks like the cheap suit section of a Chinese laundry.  And every time another light grey two button wool blend gets stacked, the accountants at Big 'n Greedy Insurance tote up the new financial carnage.  As the CEO of B'nG would say: "This sucks:  Obama didn't last long enough for us to make a goddamned dime.  He went phut out of the sodding starting gate.  I thought he was a Chicago politician with brass balls, and now I find out he was merely a "University of Chicago" politician with Matzoh Balls.  Get my bastard of a lobbyist's ass off his damned lobby and in here pronto."

So Bobby Hobby Lobby comes in and evasively semi answers some questions before informing Big that he's taking an exciting new opportunity with Organizing For America and backs out the door.  And then as Big watches the rat scuttle down the mooring line it dawns on him: "the Obami have double crossed me and I'm stuck on this sinking ship while they've 'evacuated' to a luxury catamaran off of Maui" before emitting the longest, loudest anglo saxon obscenity ever heard in a major health insurance company's executive offices.

And Vikdun Quisling, roasting in hell, turned to to a crowd of flaming Hiwis and said:  "Ja, I made zat zound too".

So one of the President's smoother fixers diverted from his Catamaran vacation to calm Mr. Big 'n Greedy down.  

"Big, baby, calm down, it's not as bad as all that.  New York state had guaranteed issue and community rating without a mandate and all that happened there is that the individual insurance market disappeared!  So a bunch of rubes end up not being able to find insurance - Big deal"

"Yes but..." Big replied in exasperation and talking very slowly as if to the mentally feeble: "...the NY fools set that up at a time when no sentient insurance company would participate in their insane market.  They persuaded the rubes that they were 'saving' them from high rates and evil exclusions by wiping out the whole damn market.  I mean a healthy individual in New York would have had to pay almost $12 grand a  year for lousy coverage....and I can't lose money in a market that I don't participate in and doesn't exist."

"Yeah, like I said.  So what's your problem", the fixer replied blandly as he inspected his manicure.

Big exploded out of his chair and within a few inches of the Fixer's face:  "My problem, you nitwit, is that I have contracted and by law am required to participate in this market and millions of sick people have signed up while almost none of the young, healthy, uninsured males that you told me I could loot have....and you now won't force them.  Which means that I am going to lose a fuckload of money and my job."

The fixer, his manicure forgotten, leaned back as far as he could but couldn't evade the flecks of spittle flying from Big's enraged maw. "Umm, yeah, well that's why we set up the pools.  You know, the kickbacks - I mean risk pools so you guys would be OK if the scam, I mean the legislation didn't pan out".  The last part came out in a whoosh with a smile as if he had just remembered the sweet backdoor that they'd negotiated.

Big, breathing heavily, and looking resigned sat back down.  "Let me play you a little something.  It's a recording of a conversation that I had with some operatives for the Congressional Republicans.  Because you know that if they won't support the kickbacks....crap! you've got me doing it too, I mean the risk pools then they don't exist and we're screwed"  Big played the recording which went hellos, weather etc. and then Big posed the question to Mr. Republican:

"So mister Big what you're  asking is if we will honor the kickbacks you negotiated with the Dems as part of your price to screw us? Is that what you're saying?"

"Well, I wouldn't put it quite like..."

"No, that's great" the Repub was beginning to chuckle.  "Not its just, heh, I, hee, hee, um, gulp, heh, that's just haw, haw, haw the funniest thing I've ever heard.  Holdonasecond I gottaget the boys in to hear this - they'll never believe me...don't go anywhere"  Mr. Big turned the recording off.

And the Fixer, an honors graduate of the Faber University Law school by the name of Bluto Blutarsky III, replied:  "Hey, whaddya expect? You fucked up, you trusted us."