Sebelius To Insurers: It's Over, You Lost, Stop Looking For Loopholes

Kathleen Sebelius warned the insurance industry Monday not to look for loopholes in health care legislation and informed it that she will be writing regulations to ensure that the industry covers children with preexisting conditions, which some insurers insist is not a requirement of the law.

"The American people debated and discussed health insurance reform for more than a year. Congress and the President have acted. Now is not the time to search for non-existent loopholes that preserve a broken system," writes Sebelius, the Health and Human Services Secretary. The letter was sent to top insurance lobbyist Karen Ignagni on Monday and provided to HuffPost by a third party.

President Obama made the ban on denying children with preexisting conditions a central part of his argument in the closing weeks of the reform fight, saying that kids would be protected almost immediately after the bill passed. (The rule would activate in six months.)

But insurers argued that what the law really said was that if they choose to cover children, they must cover expenses arising from preexisting conditions. But they claim that doesn't mean they have to offer insurance at all to that child. Without a public insurance plan for children to opt in to, their only choice is the private market.

Sebelius's letter is an attempt to persuade the private industry to follow the spirit of the law. When Congress returns after the two-week recess, progressive Democrats will again be looking at ways to add a public option to the law. By threatening to refuse to insure sick children, insurers only make the case that much more persuasive.

Comments

[RUKidding0]

12:26 PM on 03/31/2010

Having failed to pass the plan of this administration’s dreams, Sebelius is signaling that they will now seek to bastardize the promulgation process to gain what they lost in the highly corrupt legislative process, but, since "The fine print differs from the larger political message”, defending in court spurious promulgation based on larger political messages rather than actual wording should prove entertaining .

Personally, I look forward to fight to the death court battles over this legislation, complete with the foaming at the mouth demonization this administration so heavily relies upon.

The bad news is that it will likley first be judged by an activist, leftist judiciary, but, the good news is that, sooner or later, a more reasonable Supreme Court will have it’s say on Obamacare.

[jimpager]

09:56 AM on 03/31/2010

Folks still havn't come to grips with the demographics of health care. As the
WWII babies enter the system, ALL extraneous costs will be milked from
the system or America will resemble India where they cart off the
dead in the streets every morning. That means having 50 health insurors
and fifty bureaucracies with overlapping and conflicting coverages will
be gone...whether gracefully now or nastily in a period of crisis. Thus the need for
single payer and ONE bureaucracy only. The insurance companies already know this and
have gone into GRAZE mode...extending their profit-making life as long as they
can for now, until we wake up one morning and they are all announcing their bankruptcies.

Health insurors don't bring health, they bring fifty different bureaucracies.
We use single payer in the military, the police, fire departments, and the post
office, but not in health care. In America, we defend our corporate billionaires
even to our own deaths. Long live HMOs and their top 30 ranking among the
world's health care systems (was it number 27?). Next year we could beat out
Costa Rica !

[StillweRise]

10:53 AM on 03/31/2010

actually, America was 38th..

[ThirdSection]

08:17 AM on 03/31/2010

"When Congress returns after the two-week recess, progressive Democrats will again be looking at ways to add a public option to the law. By threatening to refuse to insure sick children, insurers only make the case that much more persuasive. "

Okay Dems, you've got the momentum, now use it!

[ChelseaC]

05:11 PM on 03/30/2010

Robert Reich stated:
"Obama's legislation is very conservative building on a Republican rather than a New Deal foundation."
This bill is Nixon's dream.

What we have is a Republican health care system--a gift to the insurance industry.
Sebelius stated on NPR radio last year (google it) that she would STOP single payer.
What she is showing is faux outrage at the insurance companies but what she doesn't tell you is that this bill looks ALMOST INDENTICAL to the bill written by former VP of Public Affairs, Liz Fowler of Well Point Health Insurance Company.

Obama received over 20 Million dollars from the industry:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/-9

Kathleen wants to make it look as if she has outrage at an industry that Obama is mandating customers too--it's all so transparent to anyone paying attention.What a crock.

[ChelseaC]

05:37 PM on 03/30/2010

sorry, "to buy"

[S Valley]

05:53 PM on 03/30/2010

The US government has fallen on hard economic times. China won't foot this bill too, and the military can't be easily reduced at this time. How do you suggest we provide universal health care, which is a must?

You're last paragraph is belied by the facts. Sebelius was the insurance commissioner for Kansas before becoming its governor. She was instrumental in getting health care coverage for the children of her state, despite grumbling Republican opposition. If anybody knows the shenanigans of the health care insurance industry, she does. Facts matter whatever the crockery.

[S Valley]

05:55 PM on 03/30/2010

Me too.
Correction: "Your last paragraph .... "

[ChelseaC]

04:59 PM on 03/30/2010

Where's my post?

[JaxReader]

03:12 PM on 03/31/2010

Its higher up.

[JaxReader]

02:31 PM on 03/30/2010

I love this woman.

[ChelseaC]

04:58 PM on 03/30/2010

Why?

[JaxReader]

03:21 PM on 03/31/2010

Well other than her GMILF status, I love the fact that she is talkin' smack to insurance companies.

I know you don't like her and you think healthcare reform was a benefit to the insurance companies, and I definitely can see your reasoning. But I work with them everyday, and they are NOT happy. I have personally watched them abuse people for over 3 years and have been fighting them myself. I've seen them deny newborn babies health insurance because they were born "fat", watched them deny operations for children with bad hearts claiming it was a birth defect which is not covered, etc.

I don't think reform was perfect, or hard enough on the insurance companies, and I would love to see a public option, and real tort reform, but regardless, I think its a good place to start.

[S Valley]

06:02 PM on 03/30/2010

Well, her manner is a little different than Palin's.

[GhostwriterDoF]

01:59 PM on 03/30/2010

These vile Insurance Corporation Executives and their myrmidon agents did not use planes to knock down buildings and kill a couple thousand people, yet they are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans and many millions of lives left in financial ruin. They do not appease a virulent Religious Ideology that declared a war against our Country, it is clearly understood that their sole motivation is maximizing profits to enrich themselves and to appease greed. Now they openly seek loopholes in legislation, which they wrote, to continue attacking the weakest and most disadvantaged among us by the thousands, disabled children, many of them being cared for by struggling single mothers.

Apparently, as long as you are making profits in the billions, you can abuse and kill unlimited amounts of people collaterally, just as long as you serve the Profit At Any Cost Ideology, and continue your political contributions to the Parties. Is this the true measure of Washington's resolve, sworn to protect and defend the people of this Country, against threats foreign and DOMESTIC?

[ChelseaC]

04:53 PM on 03/30/2010

Indeed they are killers--and who just mandated the American people to buy from these snakes?
Obama!
Why didn't he just clean up and expand MEDICARE to ALL Americans who wanted in?
Because--he owes his coffers:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/01/12-9

Robert Reich stated it very well when he said:
"Obama's legislation is very conservative building on a Republican rather than a New Deal foundation."

There you have it--we have a for-profit Nixon style health care--I mean--health INSURANCE bill.
Liz Fowler of Well Point Insurance company--side kick of Sen Max Baucus wrote the reform.
We elected a Democrat fro CHANGE and got a Republican instead.

[RuinedSaint]

01:31 PM on 03/30/2010

WakeUp: "Silver platter?? 3.4%..."

Yes, 3.4%... AFTER the deducts, salary, administration costs, investment, re-investment, charities, and everything else. In addition, 3.4% is also fairly nubulous... 3.4% of 1M$ is 34K$; 3.4% of 1B$ is 34M$.

Additionally, health insurance was created with the INTENT of allowing health care costs (which requires research, experimentation, risk, failure, etc.) to remain affordable to the common citizen. I've no problem with profits, but I do have a problem with profits gained from a service that no longer fulfills its intended purpose. Health Insurance has become a modern-day snake oil. Unless an insurance company has gained 100% customer satisfaction, then there is no justification for .00001% profit, let alone 3.4%.

The insurance companies have had nearly 100 YEARS to get it right, ever since Teddy Roosevelt first pushed for health care reform at the beginning of the 20th century; that we are STILL having this problem not a failing of the Left, as you try to insinuate, but of their own business model and management.

[MendozaLine]

03:01 PM on 03/30/2010

Don't forget, when the CEO's and other highly comped individuals take out profits in the form of bonuses and long term incentive comp they pay in many cases 15-28% in cap tax or income tax.

The corporate rate is 35%. It's cheaper for the company to distribute earnings than it is to keep it in the company. Once its gone, they need to do something to keep their profit margain healthy enough to keep the stock price high.

My solution? Make it more expensive for the individual to take money out of the company than to keep it in the company.

[Eris23Skidoo]

12:41 PM on 03/30/2010

The insurance companies are playing right into the hands of those of us who want a PO. Keep acting like the greedy bastards you are, insurance companies! We'll have a PO in no time!

[jak466]

02:05 PM on 03/30/2010

hope you will do your part to pay for them when they are all jobless. Oh thats right, left compassion only runs so deep.

[ChelseaC]

05:18 PM on 03/30/2010

insurance companies becoming jobless--certainly they can do something more worthwhile for society because this system is corrupt.
If insurance companies go down, innovation in other areas can begin as the ball and chain tied to employers and individuals will be removed--or do you prefer a stangnant snake oil cartel instead of real innovation?
I take it you have no clue as to the burden this health care system is on people and on business--but you what to keep it because it's the humanitarian thing to do?
Certainly there are better (and more moral ) jobs out there than being the insurance adgent that denies care to a sick person and make profit off the suffering of human beings, no?

[ChelseaC]

05:42 PM on 03/30/2010

Don't hold your breath. It was Obama who blocked the "public option"
last week's
http://www.democracynow.org/

and Obama who blocked single payer:
Dr. Marga.ret Flo.wers
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02052010/watch3.html
Dr. An.gell
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03052010/watch3.html

[jak466]

06:36 PM on 03/30/2010

Believe me, he also signed an executive order against funding for abortion. Not worth the paper it is written on. Means nothing. And pelosi, and reid and others have already indicated this is a start...to public option and or singlr payer.

Pelosi: "People will be able to quit there day jobs and become writers and artists without fear of losing their insurance". And you get to pay for it.

[happycat]

06:40 PM on 03/30/2010

Thank you for posting this, Chelsea. I love Bill Moyers. Fanned, even though you probably are still mad at me for some of my other comments.

[jak466]

11:31 AM on 03/30/2010

I see the huff police are out in full force! Typical lefty B.S.!

[Guitanguran]

11:26 AM on 03/30/2010

Here's the loophole the insurance companies need to close up:

The mandate, which obstensibly would require some 16,000 IRS agents to enforce, has no teeth.

Nobody's going to jail. Maybe, at worst, refunds get deducted.

What does that mean for the insurance companies? It means they client base they were depending on to pay for the added expense of covering everybody else with pre-existing conditions and the like, won't be there.

What happens?

The insurance companies go broke with those government-mandated coverages minus the mandated participation, and the government is the only insurer left standing.

Pretty slick. If there's a big uproar between now and 2013, the progressives that crafted the bill can point to the loophole tell everyone not to worry, they were just kidding about forcing everyone to be insured, at least until the insurance companies DO fail. Then, with just the government left to insure you, the teeth on enforcement comes in.

Miss the Consitution yet?

Inane one liners, Alinsky-ist name calling, disregard for the facts, ad hominem attacks, name calling, non-responsive answers, re-framing the argument, straw men, declarations of victimhood, and maybe even more of the "R" card in 3...2...

[Eris23Skidoo]

12:44 PM on 03/30/2010

Bo-ring.

[Guitanguran]

11:52 PM on 03/30/2010

...1

[Wasp35]

02:19 PM on 03/30/2010

You hit the nail on the head, Guitanguran. But no surprise--your truthful and logical warning of where we are headed is of no interest to the moonbats on this thread (apparently, Eris23Skidoo finds the whole thing quite "Bo-ring"). Fanned.

[Eris23Skidoo]

05:52 PM on 03/30/2010

I find it boring when someone writes a textbook and then preempts any criticism of their off-kilter views with a paragraph like the last one Guitanguran's post. If he wants to have an open, honest conversation, fine. If he wants to state his talking points and then pretend that his viewpoint is the only valid one then I find him to be a bore.

[jsgaetano]

11:08 AM on 03/30/2010

Conservatives only care about kids when they are either fetuses or political props.

At any other time, they simply get in the way of conservatives and their blood money.

[Guitanguran]

11:44 AM on 03/30/2010

"Conservatives only care about kids when they are either fetuses or political props."

Repeating an Alinsky-ist meme over and over doesn't make it true.

Considering the track record of dealing with poverty since the Great Society program in the 60's, I think it's progressives that need to apologize to the various groups they were purporting to serve for the kind of shape they've left them in.

[Eris23Skidoo]

12:45 PM on 03/30/2010

Nobody said that repetition made anything true. But that does not change the fact that conservatives only care about kids when they are either fetuses or political props.

[jsgaetano]

01:14 PM on 03/30/2010

Poor lil Goopers, so bitter and angry that everything they do is such a miserable failure... and them desperately flopping about looking for someone to blame.

But hey, keep cheering for the insurance companies to dodge out of covering sick kids. You keep showing us what being a "compassionate conservative" is all about.

[ChelseaC]

05:33 PM on 03/30/2010

You're right--but the Dems have now become the Republicans.

[RonGallion]

10:58 AM on 03/30/2010

I think Kathleen Sebelius misspoke she meant to say America You Lost, Get Over It.

[talkpeople]

11:04 AM on 03/30/2010

Bring on the cramdown. Banks fear it and Americans will have a foot back in the game.

[Eris23Skidoo]

02:33 PM on 03/30/2010

She said exactly what she meant. That's the difference b/t liberals and conservatives. Liberals speak their minds, conservatives say whatever is most strategic toward completing their goals.

[ChelseaC]

05:19 PM on 03/30/2010

Yes, she stated the conservative line all RIGHT!

[AGlobalCitizen]

10:34 AM on 03/30/2010

What's shocking to me isn't the fact that the healthcare industry is looking for loopholes to deny sick children proper coverage. It's the fact that the Republicans side with these people, claim to live by Christian principles and point Obama and his administration as the coming of the Anti-Christ.

Talk about irony. Where does it say in the bible that helping the poor should only be done when profitable.
What type of bible do these people read?

[talkpeople]

10:57 AM on 03/30/2010

Republican party has been replaced by the narrow minded southern political machine. The south will not rise again, not ever going to happen. I suppose us northerns are going to have to squash their dreams of repression and discrimination.

[jak466]

02:13 PM on 03/30/2010

Fascinating!

[ChelseaC]

05:21 PM on 03/30/2010

Talkpeople,
I hate to break it to you but this is a republican bill written by the insurance cartel itself.
As a progressive, the Dems are squashing our dreams.

[TJCole]

12:40 PM on 03/30/2010

They wrote this Bill, they know where the loopholes are they put them there...

Max Baucus and his office are Wellpoint Ins. Co you know, we never had a chance...

[Rmath]

10:12 AM on 03/30/2010

I'll bet Karen Ignominy wasn't very pleased to hear Sebelius' remarks.

[ChelseaC]

05:22 PM on 03/30/2010

They'll have cocktails later and laugh their tails off!