Health care insurance companies have been speculating in the derivatives market and credit default swaps... just like AIG an Goldman Sachs.
AIG was an insurance company that we bailed out through TARP.
Wellpoint, Aetna, Humana, etc., are going to be bailed out.. not by TARP.. but by cash. Cash paid as premiums by every man, woman and child in the United States.
Below is an article that goes back to 1993... and explains how the health insurance companies got into the mess that they are in..... through the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading COmmission), headed by Dr. Wendy Gramm, (Wife of Senator Phil Gramm of Texas)
." President Reagan called Wendy Gramm "my favorite economist," naming her chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the powerful regulatory agency which oversees the nation's commodities and futures exchanges.
Some economists state that the 1999 legislation spearheaded by Sen Phil Gramm and signed into law by President Clinton — the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act — was significantly to blame for the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis and 2008 global economic crisis.<10><11> The Act is most widely known for repealing portions of the Glass-Steagall Act, which had regulated the financial services industry.<12>
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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1094/is_n2_v28/ai_13834938/Business Economics, April, 1993 by James A. Hayes, Joseph B. Cole, David I. Meiselm
Because of the enormous importance of health care expenditures, now exceeding 13 percent of GNP, and the impact of volatility and uncertainty of health care costs on buyers and sellers of health care and health care insurance, a natural market exists for still another significant derivative product to manage the risk of changes in health care costs. The product, as with other derivatives, will facilitate price discovery, risk transfer, and risk management.
Leslie Rosenthal, former CBOT Board of Directors Chairman and currently Chairman of the Insurance Subcommittee at the CBOT, among others, advocated the development of insurance futures at the exchange and is responsible for completing the design of these contracts with the support of the CBOT Economic Analysis and Planning Department staff. Several contracts, including health insurance futures contract, have been approved by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).