Forget the talk: Insurers buy into Obamacare
By: Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
August 12, 2009
Barack Obama last year received more campaign cash from health maintenance organizations than any politician before him ever did -- and it's not even close.
Obama raised more than $1.4 million in 2008 from the employees and executives of "Health Services/HMOs" as the Center for Responsive Politics labels them -- or "villains" as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls them. That's more than the combined haul of every Republican nominee since Ronald Reagan left office.
These numbers don't prove that Obama is owned by the health insurers. But they deflate the liberal claim that Republicans and "reform" protesters are shills for the industry.
But the liberals and the Democrats are now relying on this line of attack -- that opponents of "reform" are doing the bidding of the insurance companies -- instead of trying to defend on the merits their package of subsidies, taxes, regulations, mandates, spending, and new government programs.
The truth, largely ignored in the media, is not useful for Democrats nor does it fall into the standard journalistic framework of regulators-vs-industry: Health insurance companies, which have given nearly twice as much to Democrats this cycle as to Republicans, are lobbying for and running ads in favor of most of the big-government provisions in Democrats' health care "reform" bills.
We need to be more precise when talking about who is on what side. An ad funded by a labor union charges that "insurance companies and Republicans want to kill President Obama's health insurance reform." But things are more complex than that, in part because there are at least four different "reform" bills.
The bills all would require everyone to buy and keep health insurance while subsidizing private insurance. For obvious reasons, the health insurers support these provisions. Some of the bills also include a Wal-Mart-supported mandate that employers offer health insurance benefits to workers -- a provision that also profits insurers.
"Reform" bills all would impose regulations on the insurers -- for example, barring insurers from turning down customers or charging more for people who have health problems. America's Health Insurance Plans, the lead lobbying group for the health insurers, has long supported these regulations in exchange for the individual mandate.
Finally, some of the bills would create a government health insurer that would compete with the private insurers. This is the main point of contention between Democrats and the insurers. The other sticking point: One proposed way of paying for the spending programs is through cutting Medicare spending, and Blue Cross administers Medicare in many states.
So, the "villainous" insurers' lobbying agenda is more in tune with Democrats than with Republicans.
On insurer campaign cash, the Democrats win hands down. First, there's Obama, the all-time champion in raising money from HMOs. But if you still suspect the HMOs are leave-me-alone types rather than subsidize-and-regulate-me types, consider that the second-highest recipient ever of HMO money is Hillary Clinton, whose name is synonymous with government-managed care (the HMOs supported Hillarycare back in the day). The No. 2 GOP recipient last election (after presidential nominee John McCain) was former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who created his own Obamacare in the Bay State.
So far this election, 65 percent of HMO money has gone to Democratic candidates, up from 60 percent last cycle.
The top recipient of HMO money this election is Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, and the top House recipient is Rep. Henry Waxman, the "reform" author in the House.
So the insurers are and have been crucial allies to Obama and the Democrats on health care reform, just as they were allies in Obama's first major action, expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. And similarly, big business has been an ally in all of Obama's major pushes -- cap and trade, the stimulus, and even tobacco regulation.
But now Democrats are attacking their allies, perhaps because polls show HMOs as a good foil and a good cudgel with which to bludgeon opponents. Will this push the insurers -- who are now running vague but decidedly "pro-reform" ads on TV and the radio -- away from a deal?
If so, Democrats will have sacrificed their reform, abandoned their campaign promises, and left millions of people uninsured for the sake of drawing some political blood. Or maybe the insurers are happy to be called "villains" as long as they get their subsidies and mandates.
Timothy P. Carney, The Examiner's lobbying editor, can be reached at tcarney@washingtonexaminer.com. He writes an op-ed column that appears on Friday.
