WASHINGTON -Insurance companies aren’t playing nice any more.
Their dire message that health care legislation will drive up premiums for people who already have coverage comes as a warning shot at a crucial point in the debate, and threatens President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.
Democrats and their allies scrambled on Monday to knock down a new industry-funded study forecasting that Senate legislation, over time, will add thousands of dollars to the cost of a typical policy. “Distorted and flawed,” said White House spokeswoman Linda Douglass. “Fundamentally dishonest,” said AARP’s senior policy strategist, John Rother. “A hatchet job,” said a spokesman for Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
But the health insurance industry’s top lobbyist in Washington stood her ground. In a call with reporters, Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, pointedly refused to rule out attack ads on TV featuring the study, though she said she believed the industry’s concerns could be amicably addressed.
At the heart of the industry’s complaint is a decision by lawmakers to weaken the requirement that millions more Americans get coverage. Since the legislation would ban insurance companies from denying coverage on account of poor health, many people will wait to sign up until they get sick, the industry says. And that will drive up costs for everybody else.
Proof that the govt ALREADY covers the most expensive patients, while leaving the profitable patients to the private insurance companies. Can we stop already with privatizing profits while socializing the losses? The insurance companies are salivating at the idea of forced insurance. This needs to stop.
This is exactly why I’d like to see a single-payer system with private insurance available for supplemental upgrades and extras.
