Harry and Louise, Closet Socialists
By Michael Kinsley
WashPost
Friday, August 7, 2009
You've probably heard by now that Harry and Louise have changed their minds. This fictional couple dreamed up by the health insurance lobby to stop the last attempt at health-care reform -- led by Hillary Clinton in 1993-94 -- is back on the air, declaring that reform is essential. A news release from the insurance lobby tut-tuts skeptics: "Health care reform is far too important to be dragged down by divisive political rhetoric from Washington, D.C." Divisive political rhetoric. Can't have that! (Write and tell them you agree. They're at 601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, South Building, Suite 500, Washington, D.C., 20004.)
It's almost enough to make you sympathize with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has called the insurers "villains." But Pelosi was not referring to their agit-prop. She was referring to unpopular practices such as turning down customers with "preexisting conditions," charging people more based on their health prospects or refusing to renew them if they get sick. The insurers themselves seem to have decided that this kind of behavior is indeed villainous. In another ad they scold, as if describing some dreadful situation on the moon that they have nothing to do with: "Illness doesn't care where you live -- or if you're already sick -- or if you lose your job. Your health insurance shouldn't either." It shouldn't? So why does it? The industry lobby says, as part of health-care reform, that it will stop caring whether you're already sick. But why wait, now that the scales have fallen from their eyes?
To avoid extinction, and replacement by a single-payer, government-financed system, the insurers say they are now ready to change the rules. (In fact, they can't imagine where those silly old rules came from.) They propose a deal: They will insure all comers without discrimination, if everybody is required to sign up. They figure that the millions of young, healthy people who currently don't carry insurance will balance out the older, sicker people who currently can't get it. All the major variants on reform that Congress is weighing buy into this deal, more or less, with two exceptions: rates may vary based on smoking, because it's voluntary, and aging, because it isn't.
(More here.)
WashPost
Friday, August 7, 2009
You've probably heard by now that Harry and Louise have changed their minds. This fictional couple dreamed up by the health insurance lobby to stop the last attempt at health-care reform -- led by Hillary Clinton in 1993-94 -- is back on the air, declaring that reform is essential. A news release from the insurance lobby tut-tuts skeptics: "Health care reform is far too important to be dragged down by divisive political rhetoric from Washington, D.C." Divisive political rhetoric. Can't have that! (Write and tell them you agree. They're at 601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, South Building, Suite 500, Washington, D.C., 20004.)
It's almost enough to make you sympathize with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has called the insurers "villains." But Pelosi was not referring to their agit-prop. She was referring to unpopular practices such as turning down customers with "preexisting conditions," charging people more based on their health prospects or refusing to renew them if they get sick. The insurers themselves seem to have decided that this kind of behavior is indeed villainous. In another ad they scold, as if describing some dreadful situation on the moon that they have nothing to do with: "Illness doesn't care where you live -- or if you're already sick -- or if you lose your job. Your health insurance shouldn't either." It shouldn't? So why does it? The industry lobby says, as part of health-care reform, that it will stop caring whether you're already sick. But why wait, now that the scales have fallen from their eyes?
To avoid extinction, and replacement by a single-payer, government-financed system, the insurers say they are now ready to change the rules. (In fact, they can't imagine where those silly old rules came from.) They propose a deal: They will insure all comers without discrimination, if everybody is required to sign up. They figure that the millions of young, healthy people who currently don't carry insurance will balance out the older, sicker people who currently can't get it. All the major variants on reform that Congress is weighing buy into this deal, more or less, with two exceptions: rates may vary based on smoking, because it's voluntary, and aging, because it isn't.
(More here.)
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