Obamacare and Its Cronies | National Review Online
“Collaboration” between insurers and the administration, or revolving-door economics?
Despite the myriad problems with Obamacare’s rollout, health-insurance companies are not tempering their support for the controversial law. The industry is even gearing up for an expensive “PR blitz” to enroll people in the exchanges, which should come as no surprise.
In the words of former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, insurance companies are “not necessarily unbiased. They have a lot of skin in the game.” Indeed, one of the more peculiar aspects of the Obamacare debate has been the mainstream media’s apparent bemusement at the insurance industry’s support for a law that not only forces people to buy its products (which are necessarily more expensive under the law) but also offers direct taxpayer subsidies to help cover the cost, to the tune of nearly $500 billion over the next ten years.
It was hardly a shock when, in 2011, the industry’s largest lobbying group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, argued in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court that, in the event that the individual mandate to purchase insurance was struck down, Obamacare should be scrapped entirely.
At the moment, insurance companies (and the Obama administration) are primarily focused on getting young, healthy individuals to sign up, and shell out, for plans offered on the exchanges. The companies may not appreciate the administration’s habit ofblaming them for every setback, but they are so invested in Obamacare’s success at this point that they have few options other than to be team players.
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