The White House is countering the health insurance lobby (AHIP) with a report showing very different results than the cartel’s ridiculous conclusions.
But the specific reforms and their consequences aren’t entirely the point.
In other words, reform is irrelevant to the cartel. If healthcare reform in its present form is passed, they will absolutely figure out a way to raise premiums regardless of regulations. That’s the way corporations work. They find the gaps and the loopholes and they exploit them. As a simplistic example, if Congress passes a law against denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, the cartel will merely triple the rates for those riskier customers. Life — or in this case, corruption — finds a way.
And so this is exactly why, short of nationalizing these bastards, we need a robust public option to give us an escape hatch. If the cartel tries to hike our premiums, we can simply leave and sign up for the public insurance plan. Problem solved.
My political concern about this AHIP study is that it won’t entirely coalesce support for the public option, but instead it will rally Congress around the Finance bill, which is the target of the AHIP study. And despite the various amendments added during markup, the Finance bill is still awful.
(Adding… Regarding nationalization, no one in Washington is proposing this. It’s just a fantasy of mine prompted by the cartel’s latest round of flagrant extortion.)
