America’s Health Insurance Plans « Healthcare Horserace

Democrats Prepared to Cripple Private Insurance

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

According to a report from Politico, Democrats have begun using the health care reform debate as a means to open fire on insurance companies, planning to remove a key provision that offers federal protection of their industry. Their efforts have been led by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) who “called for an amendment to the health care reform bill that would remove the long-standing antitrust exemption for insurers, echoing a push by other Democrats to crack down on the industry.”

“The health insurance’s antitrust exemption is one of the worst accidents of American history,” Schumer said. “It deserves a lot of the blame for the huge rise in premiums that has made health insurance so unaffordable. It is time to end this special status and bring true competition to the health insurance industry.”

Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill last month to remove the anti-trust exemption and convened a hearing Wednesday, where Schumer called for eliminating the exemption as part of the health bill working its way through Congress.

Schumer’s push comes on the heels of a controversial industry-sponsored report released over the weekend that makes the case that insurance premiums will go up by as much as $4,000 per family by 2019 if the Senate Finance Committee legislation is signed into law. The release of that report by the industry group America’s Health Insurance Plans sparked angry blowback from Democrats in both chambers.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) believes that this sort of punishment is “something that should have been done a long time ago.”

“There isn’t anything we could do to satisfy them in this health care bill. Nothing,” Reid said. “They are so anti-competitive. Why? Because they make more money than any other business in America today. . . .What a sweet deal they have.”

Sen. Schumer is not alone in his fight to cripple the private insurance industry. According to the piece, top Democratic lawmakers in the House met in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to discuss their maneuvering to garner support in their chamber of Congress to follow suit.

Insurance companies are not surprised at the move by Democrats in Congress to stifle their industry, recognizing that top Democratic lawmakers are forced to downplay recent discoveries of all the shortcomings in their push to overhaul the health care industry.

Health insurance officials dismissed the effort as a “political ploy.”

“Health insurance is one of the most regulated industries in America at both the federal and state level,” said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans. “McCarran-Ferguson has nothing to do with competition in the health insurance market. The focus on this issue is a political ploy designed to distract attention away from the real issue of rising health care costs.”

Still, the push is likely to gather momentum as Democrats try to find a way to lash back at the insurance industry — whose report was viewed as a last-minute attempt to scuttle health care reform just days before Tuesday’s critical Senate Finance Committee vote. The legislation there was approved 14-9, with Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine voting yes and giving reform efforts a boost.

Leahy’s bill would repeal the exemption established in the 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act for any companies engaged in price fixing or bid rigging — which are both already illegal. He has introduced similar legislation in other Congresses, including a broader repeal of the underlying law. Reid is a co-sponsor of the current bill.

In the House, where Democratic leaders are exploring the issue further, Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) has introduced legislation that would essentially end McCarran-Ferguson and give the federal government the right to regulate insurers at the national level.

Certainly, the attempt to further burden the insurance industry with excessive regulation will be fought by opponents of President Obama’s health care reform ambitions, and they will remind activists that any attempt to dismantle the private sector of medicine would inevitably decrease the quality of and access to health care for all Americans.

Tags: AHIP, America's Health Insurance Plans, Charles Schumer, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, John Conyers, McCarran-Ferguson, Nancy Pelosi, Obamacare, Robert Zirkelbach
Posted in The Players | 1 Comment »

AHIP: Reform will add $4,000 per year to health care premiums

Monday, October 12th, 2009

As the Senate Finance Committee prepares for a Tuesday vote on health care reform legislation, the private insurance trade group under the America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) has gone on the offensive saying Max Baucus‘ America’s Healthy Future Act would actually escalate the already skyrocketing rise in health insurance premiums. In a report issued by PriceWaterHouseCoopers and commissioned by AHIP, researchers found that insurance premiums could go up by as much $4,000 per year (an 111-percent increase) if Congress adopts the plan now know as BaucusCare versus a 79-percent increase if no reforms are adopted.

Key Findings

Health reform could have a significant impact on the cost of private health insurance
coverage.

There are four provisions included in the Senate Finance Committee proposal that could
increase private health insurance premiums above the levels projected under current law:
o Insurance market reforms coupled with a weak coverage requirement,
o A new tax on high-cost health care plans,
o Cost-shifting as a result of cuts to Medicare, and
o New taxes on several health care sectors.

The overall impact of these provisions will be to increase the cost of private insurance
coverage for individuals, families, and businesses above what these costs would be in
the absence of reform.

On average, the cost of private health insurance coverage will increase:
o 26 percent between 2009 and 2013 under the current system and by 40 percent
during this same period if these four provisions are implemented.
o 50 percent between 2009 and 2016 under the current system and by 73 percent
during this same period if these four provisions are implemented.
o 79 percent between 2009 and 2019 under the current system and by 111 percent
during this same period if these four provisions are implemented.

(From PriceWaterHouseCoopers’ Potential Impact of Health Reform on the
Cost of Private Health Insurance Coverage)

The timing of this new report couldn’t be worse for the White House and Congressional Democrats as three key members of the Finance Committee - Democrats Kent Conrad and Blanche Lincoln along with Republican Olympia Snowe , have yet to announce their intended votes on the bill but have all expressed concern over the potential costs to consumers if Americans are forced to purchase health insurance via an individual mandate which is included in not only the Baucus bill but all five of the bills currently being considered on Capitol Hill.

“This is a self-serving analysis from the insurance industry, one of the major opponents of health insurance reform,” White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said. “It comes on the eve of a vote that will reduce the industry’s profits. It is hard to take it seriously,” he added. (From Reuters’ White House blasts health insurance sector report.)

Democrats Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden have also expressed concern that the Finance bill’s lack of a government-run public option insurance plan will leave tens of millions of Americans without an affordable insurance option should Baucus’ cooperatives approach to reform be adopted in a final Senate bill and have refused to throw their support behind the bill ahead of the vote.

If the Finance Committee fails to pass a bill out of committee during tomorrow’s vote - or the vote is postponed due to a lack of support, health care reform could very well be off the table for 2009.

Tags: America's Health Insurance Plans, America's Healthy Future Act of 2009, Baucuscare, Blanche Lincoln, cooperatives, individual mandate, Jay Rockefeller, Kent Conrad, Max Baucus, Olympia Snowe, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, public-option, Ron Wyden, Senate Finance Committee
Posted in Horserace | Start the Discussion

Time keeps on slipping - health care reform express slowing

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

Barack Obama is letting up on the August recess deadline for getting health care reform bills approved in the House and Senate, and forces on both sides are renewing their efforts to pressure passage or ensure a swift death the health care express.

“In his most recent remarks, President Obama has stopped mentioning what had been his mantra — that the House and Senate finish their health-care bills by the August recess — and switched to a less specific call to fast action,” Jonathan Martin writes in Politico

“In remarks Friday in the White House Diplomatic Room, Obama said “now is not the time to slow down” but only promised health care reform would “happen this year.” He ignored a reporter’s question about pushing back his goal of having a bill before the start of the congressional recess.”

Seizing on the moment, Conservative influencers like Bill Kristol and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) are calling for a death blow to Obamacare.

No doubt, the left’s use of the Kristol blog, Kill It, and Start Over, is thrilling the Weekly Standard editor who said of the reform bills, “This is no time to pull punches. Go for the kill.”

But his opening statement, “With Obamacare on the ropes, there will be a temptation for opponents to let up on their criticism, and to try to appear constructive, or at least responsible,” is drawing fire from the Left.

The administration has tried to turn both leaders’ words against them, as reported by Politico’s Carol E. Lee.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended Obama’s tactic of directly engaging DeMint and went a step further, calling out conservative columnist Bill Kristol as one of those Republicans who are peddling “a breathtaking message.”

Obama “could just have easily have quoted a Republican strategist today who said to go for the kill and asked opponents to resist the temptation to be responsible,”

DeMint’s call to “stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo” (audio) have been widely circulated, even by the president, as evidence that the Right is simply playing politics with the health care issue.

Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reported on an invite-only conference call President Obama made with liberal bloggers, rallying the troops to pressure congress into action:

“I think it was telling, some of you may have seen, a Republican senator this weekend saying, we are just going to delay and delay because if we can stop Obama on this one, this is going to be his Waterloo. We will break him,” he said of the remarks made by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C). “That was a quote. And I think it indicates the degree to which a lot of folks may sincerely think that the more time we take the better off we are going to be but I also think there are some who deliberately want to delay this process because they know the longer the special interests have to run negative ads or lobby members of congress, the more difficult it becomes to get this done.”

Tags: America's Health Insurance Plans, Carol E. Lee, Huffington Post, Jim DeMint, Jonathan Martin, Politico, Sam Stein, The Weekly Standard, William Kristol
Posted in Eye on the Media | Start the Discussion

Krugman’s Silver Bullet: Don’t Trust the Insurance Industry

Friday, June 5th, 2009

Columnist Paul Krugman has never met an honest insurance company. In an op-ed in today’s New York Times, Krugman hands President Obama what he believes to be the proverbial “silver bullet” for healthcare reform: “Don’t trust the insurance industry.” Krugman’s argument in favor of what has simply become know as “the public option” - whereby the federal government would establish and run an insurance company to “compete” with private healthcare insurers in an effort to “keep them honest” - is classic liberalism.

Whereas free-market conservatives believe the private sector can do just about everything more efficiently and at a lower cost than government, government-intervention liberals believe you can only trust an industry as far as you have regulated it.

To his credit, Mr. Krugman plays a smart card in raising a 15-year-old political strategy memo by The Weekly Standard editor William Kristol. At the height of HillaryCare, Kristol advised the insurance industry to come up with a “uniform insurance form” which would drastically simplify the insurance claims process, lower administrative costs in hospitals and doctors offices and ultimately lower premiums for consumers. It stands to reason that such a move would have generated enough good will to help the insurance companies fight the regulations being considered by the Clinton White House.

That self-policing never happened. Hillarycare imploded in upon itself and the insurance industry got a free pass - until now. Amongst the reforms America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) - the healthcare insurance industry lobby - have suggested in an effort to stall or thwart the public-option from becoming a reality is the “Kristol Option.”

Looked at through the lense of Krugman’s argument, the insurance companies seem far from sincere. Yet, in the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt and his Big Stick, shouldn’t the federal government be willing to accept this olive branch from the insurers? The insurance companies are offering a system which would lead to lower premiums and more accessibilIty for Americans without the expansion of government and government revenue (that’s Beltway speak for raising your taxes folks) required to implement the public-option. According to President Obama, cutting costs and getting more Americans insured was the whole point of healthcare reform.

More often than not, the threat of regulation can be more productive than regulation itself.

Tags: AHIP, America's Health Insurance Plans, Barack Obama, New York Times, Paul Krugman, public-option, William Kristol
Posted in Eye on the Media | 3 Comments »

Articles Tagged ‘America’s Health Insurance Plans’

Democrats Prepared to Cripple Private Insurance

AHIP: Reform will add $4,000 per year to health care premiums

Time keeps on slipping - health care reform express slowing

Krugman’s Silver Bullet: Don’t Trust the Insurance Industry

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