The Health Insurers Have Already Won

[Meeker Morgan]

The Health Insurers Have Already Won
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_33/b4143034820260.htm

As the health reform fight shifts this month from a vacationing Washington to congressional districts and local airwaves around the country, much more of the battle than most people realize is already over. The likely victors are insurance giants such as UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Aetna (AET), and WellPoint (WLP). The carriers have succeeded in redefining the terms of the reform debate to such a degree that no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall, the insurance industry will emerge more profitable. Health reform could come with a $1 trillion price tag over the next decade, and it may complicate matters for some large employers. But insurance CEOs ought to be smiling.

Executives from UnitedHealth certainly showed no signs of worry on the mid-July day that Senate Democrats proposed to help pay for reform with a new tax on the insurance industry. Instead, UnitedHealth parked a shiny 18-wheeler outfitted with high-tech medical gear near the Capitol and invited members of Congress aboard. Inside the mobile diagnostic center, which enables doctors to examine distant patients via satellite television, Representative Jim Matheson didn't disguise his wonderment. "Fascinating, fascinating," said the Democrat from Utah. "Amazing."

Impressing fiscally conservative Democrats like Matheson, a leader of the House of Representatives' Blue Dog Coalition, is at the heart of UnitedHealth's strategy. It boils down to ensuring that whatever overhaul Congress passes this year will help rather than hurt huge insurance companies.

{MORE}

Sure, tax them but give them something more for their money. :evilfrown:

[BlooInBloo]

1. Why not pick an article from the 20th century while you're at it?

[inna]

3. hyperbolize much?

now, if it were posted in LBN, i could see how that might've been a 'problem'. :shrug:

[inna]

2. what I don't understand is how someone like Baucus (who received $3 MILLION in donations

from the "health" industry) was even ALLOWED to write this bill (which - let's face the ugly truth - is going to be the basis for the final bill).


What about conflict of interests?? How can this even be legal?? It's nothing but institutionalized bribery and corruption at the highest levels of government.

:grr:

[ArcticFox]

6. The people have no power

unless they get smart and mad enough to rise up against the corporate masters.

[gorfle]

4. Yes, they have won.

Whatever embodiment the final health care reform could or would have looked like, the one fundamental prerequisite was to cut the insurance industry, and their PROFITS, out of the equation.

By making health insurance a government-run, not-for-profit proposition, we would have seen an immediate reduction in health care costs by whatever the annual average profit margin is that they health insurance companies currently enjoy.

That opportunity seems all but gone now. The health insurance industry is, it seems, "too big to fail". With market capitalizations that probably dwarf the auto industry, with millions of related jobs and billions or even trillions of 401K dollars wrapped up in health-insurance-related investments, there was probably no way the government would ever destroy them.

So now they are going to require that everyone buy health insurance from those same private health insurance companies, in the (false) hopes that with so many more people on the insurance rolls that they will reduce their fees so that everyone pays less.

Of course what they will really do is keep the fees high and pocket the new windfall in profits.

[samsingh]

5. it's still a matter of degree

[AllentownJake]

7. The fight was over before it began

I remember sitting in an OFA Healthcare meeting and they were collecting signatures and planning a healthcare fair.

No protest, no organized demonstrations (to be fair the unions planned one), no local media campaign.

What was left of the grassroots network (a large group was alienated over the stimulus or simply were tired of campaigning) was told to hold healthcare fairs.

From that moment I knew it was over.

[Demeter]

8. the Insurers HOPE They Have Won

but they know it's not a signed, sealed and delivered deal yet.

And the odds of it getting into law are decreasing daily.

But don't tell them that.

[bertman]

9. President Obama's concession speech to Big Pharma and Big Insurance came in his

Congressional address when he assured them that only 5% of Americans would be eligible for the Public Screwing, I mean Public Option.

This may have been written on August 6, but it was dead right. The administration denied that it had made any deals with Big Pharma or Big Insurance, but now we know better.