The Post Claims The Insurance Industry Is Conning Baucus And Arvind Agrawal Wants President Obama To Protect Us From Them

Yesterday's Washington Post cut right to heart of the Republican/Baucus Caucus lies that all you have to do is legislate that the insurance companies can't discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions and-- voilà-- step right up and marvel at the reform. They're playing three card monte-- and we're the mark, the Insurance Industry is the inside con man and Baucus Caucus and the Republicans are the outside con man. If Obama is supposed to be the cop on the beat, he doesn't seem to be doing a very good job promoting Change or embodying Hope.

[S]imply banning medical discrimination would not necessarily remove it from the equation, economists and health-care analysts say... By itself, a ban on discrimination would not eliminate the economic pressure to discriminate.

"It would probably increase the incentive for cherry-picking," [Wharton Professor Mark] Pauly said. "I'm strongly motivated to try to avoid you if I'm not allowed to charge you extra."

...AHIP [Big Insurance's most insidious lobbying group] has been trying to shape the legislation in ways that could help insurers attract the healthy and avoid the sick, though it has given other reasons for advancing those positions. In a recent letter to Baucus, AHIP President Karen Ignagni said benefit packages "should give consumers flexible options to meet diverse needs."

There are myriad ways health plans can attract healthier members, from the messages they advertise to the overall level of coverage they provide and the smallest enticements they add to their benefits packages.

Anthem Blue Cross markets a line of insurance called Tonik that is explicitly aimed at young adults. "You're young. You're healthy. You're in shape," the Tonik Web site says, addressing its target market. Tonik policies bear such names as "Part-Time Daredevil" and "Thrill-Seeker." The latter is for people who "live life on the edge, and happily go over it," says the Web site, whose graphics and color scheme bring to mind an ad for the Apple iPod.

Arvind Agrawal is a Facebook friend of mine. Like all my Facebook friends, he's caught up in the debate over health care reform. Unlike many, he sent President Obama a note about why the Public Option is critically important to achieving real reform, beseeching him to do the right thing.

I would like to add a Public Insurance Option in the mix to provide a more timely and reliable way to foster competition and provide a choice from the get go. Without it is not possible to lower the cost structure with any degree of confidence. No regulation can demand that the Insurance Companies reduce their current premiums from the levels that are bone-crushing for John Q Public. Treasury coffers will continue to deplete as government pays subsidies at these high rates. The pattern of transferring money from taxpayer pockets to Corporate pockets will only grow stronger.

Obama supporters bought into your agenda of changing the corrupt ways of Washington where Corporations will no longer be able to kill reforms which target their ill begotten gains. Instead, you admonish your progressive friends on the left not to be bound by ideology and accept the reality of compromise. Be like pots with a round bottom freely moving from left to right and back to the left as the situation demands. Maybe we will change our label from progressives to regressives .

However, Mr. President, ideology does not bind. It is what helps you pursue a cause with faith and vigor. It is what gives you Audacity of Hope.

According to yesterday's Chicago Tribune President Obama is trying to do just what Arvind and most other Americans want him to do-- push for the kind of meaningful reform that includes a public option. They claim he strongly supports a public option. Does he? Only delivery will prove it to many who have noted that the forces arrayed against meaningful reform just happen to be the forces that have largely financed his political career and are also the forces that Rahm Emanuel is counting on for a good part of the money for the 2012 race.

Despite months of seeming ambivalence about creating a government health insurance plan, the Obama White House has launched an intensifying behind-the-scenes campaign to get divided Senate Democrats to take up some version of the idea in the weeks just ahead.

He'll have to sign the bill before people I know believe a word of it-- and, despite the demands of the Insurance Industry and their conservative handmaidens in both parties, one without "triggers" and other cheap gimmicks to deny real reform. So... according to this morning's Roll Call Obama seems to be persuading the Democratic Party's senatorial right flank (other than arch-reactionaries Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson). The ConservaDems are under intense pressure from voters to stop holding up the public option and to stop playing footsie with their big campaign donors. "[M]any appear prepared to fall in line with Democratic leaders-- provided they are presented with a bill that can withstand public scrutiny in their home states... [T]hey are also loath to cross President Barack Obama by causing a health care bill to fail this year."

“All of us have no question in our mind that we must have health care reform and insurance reform, and we need to move a bill,” said moderate freshman Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska). “I think we have not done as good a job delivering the message as to what all this means in health care reform. I think the public option component, and the financial issues, are absolutely going to be debated and discussed.”

To seal the endorsement of moderates, Democratic leaders are working to wrap the controversial elements of reform in a politically attractive message to the centrists’ conservative-leaning constituents. That could include the addition of provisions aimed directly at problems or issues in each Senator’s state, such as tweaks to state funding formulas for federal programs, aides said.

Senate Democratic Conference Vice Chairman Charles Schumer (N.Y.) said last week that he has spoken with most centrists and that they are “open” to some form of a public option.

“Because we believe in Democratic unity, there is no line in the sand,” Schumer said. “Liberals haven’t put a line in the sand ... the more moderate members haven’t put a line in the sand because, here’s one thing you have to remember: I think every Democrat from the most liberal to the most conservative realizes that it serves America’s interests and our own interests to pass a bill. And that is going to be a force that will help get things done.”

Both Schumer and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) indicated that state-specific or Senator-specific sweeteners might be added to secure centrist votes.

Democratic leaders and some centrists calculate that the final Senate bill is likely to include a component that critics can label a public insurance option or, in recent Republican parlance, a “government takeover” of health care. So moderates appear to be angling for the Democratic leadership to settle on a public option compromise that they can sell back home.

“It just all depends on how you’re defining a public option,” said Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who voted against two public option amendments in the Finance Committee last week. “I’m not supportive of a government-run and government-supported public option. It’s got to be competitive. It’s got to create choice for people.”

Blue America started up a statewide cable TV ad campaign today that explains Lincoln's destructive role in the debate over health care reform on behalf of his corporate contributors. You can watch our TV spots and contribute to the effort at the Campaign For Health Care Choice. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who, unlike Lincoln, will not be facing the voters in 2010, is also determined to kiss up to the Insurance companies and screw over her own constituents. "

“Most of the moderates really want to vote for health care. We’re for the little guy-- we’re Democrats. It’s what we do,” said one Senate aide who works for a moderate Democrat. “Getting the message out there is going to be difficult. But no matter what we vote on, somebody is going to call it a public option.”

But many centrists remain hard sells. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said she is “not very, if at all” open to including a public option, but she expressed a firm commitment to enact a health care bill this year.

“There’s going to be a lot more discussion with the moderate members of our Caucus over this issue and how to move forward,” she said last week. “You know, we’re all firmly committed to reform that will result in lower costs to the government-- both at the federal and state levels-- to businesses, and to families.”

Many, including White House officials, see the answer to that problem in Sen. Olympia Snowe’s (R-Maine) proposal to create a “trigger” for a public option in the event other health insurance reforms in the bill do not successfully drive down health insurance costs nor increase coverage. The bonus, they calculate, is that Snowe would sign on to such a bill and help the leaders shore up the votes of wavering centrists.

However, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a leader of the recently formed Moderate Dems Working Group, has proposed allowing states to create public plans or co-ops if they so choose. Last week, senior Democratic aides said the proposal had significant potential as a possible compromise.

As a fallback, Senate Democratic leaders have stepped up their pressure on centrists to stick with the party on procedural votes. At a minimum, leaders have asked all 60 Democrats to allow them to bring a health care bill to the floor in order to make sure Republicans cannot filibuster it.

This is another great ad went up on TV today in Arkansas: