They are feeling safe enough to be much more overt now.

Insurance companies have been seduced by the prospect of 'mandatory customers' and government contracts in perpetuity.  Much easier than sending bills to individuals or companies each month.

Single payor, if/when it gets adopted, will be fantastic for insurance companies, especially United Healthcare the Big Magilla.  For patients, not so much, since this whole business really has nothing to do with us patients except as a source of fuel.  Just picture Enron or AIG, but in health care.  It's not gonna be pretty.  The Feds, the AMA, and Big Insurance all completely in bed together.

If I'm lucky, I won't be around for the STHTF.

Bit of fortuitous timing that I saw this this morning.

The two articles in the OP, now nearly 5 years old, are worth re-reading.

Some have wondered why the insurance companies have been so quiet during all this Obamacare rollout debacle.  One, they've been warned (ordered?) by the Feds to STFU and two, the aroma of some 30 million new customers (victims) remains in the air; they could still be in the hunt for intermediary contracts.  There is no future in not going along to get along.

Now we know what went down at that White House meeting with all the Dems up for re-election next year.

Finally, a common sense sliver of hope.  Not holding my breath, but cautiously optimistic.  Spreading this word would not hurt.

Obamacare is so good, so desirable for the country, that its customers must be forced to buy it and its administrators indemnified against loss courtesy of (paid by) those same customers.  I've never been fond of insurance companies, but I hate them now, duplicitous bastards.

This is such an unnecessary drain on the treasure of the 50% of us who still bother to work & pay taxes.  Would have been far, far cheaper, and far less disruptive, to give people cash to offset insurance premiums & let them buy what they want.

But the control-freaks have a hard-on that's lasting more than 4 hours and they won't seek help.

They would not have bought insurance, that is for sure.

There are ways to make the cash available only for a designated purpose, either through tax credits or vouchers.  'Cash' was a figure of speech.  Something akin to a Series E savings bond would do the trick.  Wouldn't be able to force people to use it, but it would be otherwise worthless.  For those who don't voluntarily purchase insurance, there could easily be a way for it to be 'redeemed' first time someone presented for care.

Not perfect, but OCare sure as hell ain't.

There will be more of this, sadly.

Lack of access to centers of excellence and tertiary care centers is now being touted as a feature of Obamacare.  Not shedding tears for the big centers, since most of them were suckered into pushing for its passage way back when.  But I shed tears for the patients who might need them.  Obamacare is forcing all the formerly decently-insured middle class into the equivalent of Medicaid.  All must suffer equally under statism.  Except for the members of the state, of course.

Whether intended or not, and that's very debatable, Obamacare will, if left alone, create a permanent underclass of people dependent on government to maintain their status quo, a strong disincentive to 'move up the ladder'.  An American version of a caste system, thanks to the ignorance of 'progressives' who want to 'help'.  This can only widen the 'wealth gap' that Obama pays lip service to fixing.

It already is creating the underclass.  While democrats rail against income inequality, it has grown faster and larger under Obama than under any Republican administration.  When you have an elite with all the money, and everyone else that is "free" from work (as Obama is doing), those with the money are going to have a lot more than those who are earning nothing.

First it was, 'Those were lousy, no good insurance policies you just didn't know you didn't really want; you just thought they were meeting your needs for a reasonable price.  Boy had they fooled you.  We've just helped you realize that.'

Now it's, 'Those are jobs you didn't really want to do anyway and, besides, work is way overrated.  Chasing some crazy 'American Dream' is just a waste of your valuable leisure time; you'd have to work to get ahead and who needs that when you could kick back and toke some legal weed while Daiwa, Dr. Guy, DrJBHL, Frogboy and a few million other suckers pick up the tab?  We've just liberated you from the tyranny of the workplace.'

These f**kers (statists) are not just pond scum, they're batshit insane pond scum.

OK, maybe that's a bit unfair... to pond scum.