Business Week: The health insurers have already won

A feature article in Business Week published Thursday in the magazine's online edition suggests that, in the debate over President Barack Obama's healthcare reforms, the insurance companies have already won -- thanks to none other than the president's own party.

The magazine reports:

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.

UnitedHealth also made headlines on Thursday as the subject of a new YouTube video by filmmaker Robert Greenwald.

The clip assails UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley, focusing on several UH customers whose claims were denied in spite of their dire illnesses.

In one segment, a woman speaks of how her prescription coverage was denied by UnitedHealth. When she called a company representative to explain that she would Die if these medicines were not paid for, the UnitedHealth rep said, "Okay."

Watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKI9be55N00&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Frawstory.com%2Fblog%2F2009%2F08%2Fhave-the-health-insurers-already-won%2F&feature=player_embedded

So is the fight to insure the poor Really over? It's an arguable point, but Obama's reforms are not yet on the books. With Congress in recess for the month of August, this issue of whether or not to introduce a state-backed, public healthcare option is set to dominate American political discourse for the rest of the summer, at very least.

In this writer's opinion, it is premature to delegate victory to the corporate interests so long as there are people like Greenwald out there, ready to point a camera, take to the Web, campaign in the community and spread uncomfortable truths about a for-profit industry that leaches hundreds of billions every year from America's most vulnerable.

-- Stephen C. Webster

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/08/have-the-health-insurers-already-won/

They are the whores to the corporate overlords who rule this country

AHIP Statement on White House Health Care Summit

Posted on: Thursday, 5 March 2009, 16:33 CST



Do you think that AHIP wasn't at the Summit?

Do think that AHIP opposes the mandatory coverage provisions that are found in every bill? (except single payer)

Do you think about the fact that Dems are getting more money from the Health Insurance Industry than Repos are?


Or are these points somehow unimportant and should be ignored by Democratic voters?

I'm sorry but the White House seems to have already given up on it. We are being told to stop speaking out about the traitor Blue Dogs. Someone should tell those tea-bagging Alzheimer's patients to go home, they've already won.

I am curious, how does our party plan to be re-elected 2010 and 2012?