One of the ironies of the health care debate is that the health care industry is fighting hard to block health care reform but they are still likely to come out very well financially. It is the insurance companies which are responsible for originating many of the false claims about health care reform which are echoed by the far right. The Congressional Budget Office has already demonstrated that they have little to fear from the public option. After hearing Obama’s speech last night (discussed here) Wall Street also feels that the insurance companies will not be harmed by health care reform. Health insurance stock prices are rising today:
Following the speech, analysts predicted any changes to the system would be moderate, with Obama backing many initiatives put forth earlier this week by a leading Senate committee. The possibility a threatening public health plan would be enacted also now seemed doubtful, analysts said.
“There wasn’t anything said that is drastically changing the outlook as to what might come out of Congress,” said Steve Shubitz, an analyst with Edward Jones.
Is this supposed to be good news? So the government is happy because they get a big new costly program with lots of new powers. And apparently the big bad evil greedy money-grubbing insurance companies that you have been castigating for months are, er, happy. So they apparently will keep raking it in. Labor unions are happy because they can offload their pension health insurance obligations off on the taxpayers.
Maybe I’m just cynical, but if all of these suits are happy I figure I should be really scared.
I didn’t say it is good news, but I guess it is good news for those who think that the insurance companies will no longer make money (and also consider that a bad thing).
To me it is confirmation that we are all getting played.
It’s more confirmation that Obama is taking a centrist approach, attempting to preserve the current system of private insurance.
I have friends who are self-employed paying $700-$900 a month for basic catastrophic care coverage. Of course this is based on pre-existing conditions but their loss is the insurers (and their Wall Street accomplices) gain. Tell me this is fair or that it is fair that people are bankrupted every day to pay for care that is often too little too late. As more people are laid off from their jobs and losing their group coverage, the demand for reform in the form of a single-payer system will only increase. The trend and numbers don’t look good for the Wall Street bankers or Big Insurance so far as the public relations battle is concerned.