Liberal health care writer Jonathan Cohn has a good piece in the new issue of The New Republic, and it’s online now. It nicely recounts some history of the health insurance industry’s role in the three biggest health-care policy debates of the last 16 years: 1993 HillaryCare, the late 1990s Patients Bill of Rights, and the current push for a federal overhaul of the industry.
Cohn’s article captures (without always fully sharing) the mistrust many liberals have when big business seems to be on their side. Cohn recalls his debate with top insurance lobbyist Karen Ignagni, and his thought at the time:
My role, as the author of a new book critical of the insurance industry, was to remind viewers that Ignagni was full of it–that the insurance industry really did do everything it could to avoid covering sick people and to thwart efforts at reform. This was, after all, the same industry that gave us all “Harry and Louise.” The discussion got a bit heated, as these things go; I basically accused Ignagni of lying when she said she wanted everybody to have access to insurance; and, by the end, Ignagni was (according to the cameraman) complaining that I’d landed a few low blows.
Now, Cohn uses this anecdote in a semi-self-deprecating way–the rest of the article shows he’s developed a more nuanced picture of Ignagni and the industry’s agenda. But I liked this passage in how well it captured many liberal misperceptions of the industry.
First, in a very important way, Ignagni wasn’t really representing “the same industry that gave us all ‘Harry and Louise,’ ” the fictional TV-ad couple that helped torpedo HillaryCare. As I explain in my column today, that was the smaller, traditional insurers who funded those ads. The big HMOs actually supported HillaryCare. (Cohn kind of acknowledges this later on.)
Second, it’s almost laughable when Cohn admits he “basically accused Ignagni of lying when she said she wanted everybody to have access to insurance.” Why wouldn’t health insurers want everybody to have access to their product–especially when trillions in subsidies are on the table? Sure, they may not want to sell the insurance to sick people at low prices, but if the government can mandate everyone (including all healthy people) buy insurance, and can subsidize much of it, “reform” means government funneling customers and tax dollars to Ignagni’s clients.
I recommend Cohn’s piece and my column to readers interested in the health care debate and industry’s role in it. (Here are some of my past columns on the subject of the health industry and “reform”:
