If the ACA is a giveaway to insurance companies, why are they contributing to the negative press?

[alc]

9. they need to "win" the PR battle

In theory they get lots more customers this year. But corporations want to increase profit year-after-year ("increase" is the key for growth, not stead profit). Any problems people have with them doing this need to be seen as the ACA's fault, not theirs. They want to keep jacking up premiums while we keep blaming the government.

The medical loss ratio (mlr) says they have to spend 80-85% of premiums on medical costs. That means the only way to increase profit on ACA policies every year (after first year of increased customers) is to increase medical costs and they have plenty of ways to do that. This will lead to battles with regulators that they will play out in the media. They need to get the upper hand now. When regulators tell them to decrease costs (no premium increase) they will start screaming "death panel". If they win the battle now, the media and customers are more likely to side with them wanting to "cover everything" rather than regulators who want to decrease premiums.

If regulators do "win" the MLR battle, the insurers will be able to increase profit by offering supplemental policies to cover everything the "death panels" (aka regulators) have caused them to cut. They will also want to blame the ACA for that, so they need their customers to have a negative view of the ACA and not them.