You can't see them. They're hidden from view and probably always will be. But the health insurance industry's big guns are in place and pointed directly at the citizens of Vermont.

Health insurers were not able to stop the state's drive last year toward a single-payer health care system, which...

"It shouldn't be this way," read the subject line of an email I received Friday morning from a conservative friend and fellow Southerner. "People shouldn't have to beg for money to pay for medical care."

At first, I thought he was referring to my column last week in which I...

In his State of the Union address this week, President Obama said very little about health care reform, but what he did say was a reminder of how tight a grip the insurance industry has on the U.S. health care system -- and will continue to have if the Affordable...

The journey I embarked on when I made the decision to leave a successful career in the health insurance business was a spiritual one. I can trace the decision to a true epiphany, to the very moment I saw hundreds of people standing, soaking wet, in long, slow-moving lines, waiting...

Mitt Romney has taken a lot of heat since he said during a discussion about health care shortly before the New Hampshire primary that, "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me."

Most of the criticism has been in connection with his tenure as CEO of...

I don't expect that Rick Santorum will be our next president, despite his near-win in Iowa and likely a decent showing in tomorrow's New Hampshire primary. I'm pretty certain that when more voters become aware of his views and voting record, Santorum will join Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty as...

Let's say you have a Ford and decide to replace everything under the hood with Hyundai parts, including the engine and transmission. Could you still honestly market your car as a Ford?

That question gets at the heart of the controversy over who is being more forthright about GOP Rep....

I'm sitting by the hospital bed of a grateful Medicare beneficiary -- my mother. She seems to be making progress in her battle against pneumonia, and she doesn't have the worry that many other patients here have about how they are going to pay their medical bills. Because private insurance...

It was four years ago today that I received a phone call from a Los Angeles TV reporter that would change my life, although I certainly didn't realize it at the time.

The reporter said she had been told that CIGNA, the big health insurer I worked for back then,...

The money that patients' rights advocates have to spend trying to convince the Obama administration that Americans should have decent health care benefits pales in comparison to the boatloads of cash insurers and their corporate allies have on hand to do largely the opposite. But at least the advocates are...

I did exactly what the doctor told me to do. Unfortunately, I'm not feeling a bit better. Maybe even a little worse.

Last week, Dr. Michael C. Burgess, tweeted this directive: "Mark your calendars: Rick Perry will join Health Caucus' Thought Leaders Series next Wednesday, December 7...

If you wonder why the health insurance industry has to set up front groups and secretly funnel cash to industry-funded coalitions to influence public policy, take a look at the most recent results of the Kaiser Family Foundation's monthly Health Tracking Poll.

In its November poll, KFF added...

The Obama Administration will be making some important decisions over the coming weeks that will determine to a large extent whether consumers or health insurers will be the biggest beneficiaries of health care reform.

When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act last year, it included a controversial provision that insurers...

A little more than a year ago, on the day after the GOP regained control of the House of Representatives, Speaker-to-be John Boehner said one of the first orders of business after he took charge would be the repeal of health care reform.

"I believe that the health care bill...

One of the reasons why Congress has been largely unable to make the American health care system more efficient and equitable is because of the stranglehold lobbyists for special interests have on the institution.

Whenever lawmakers consider any kind of meaningful reform, the proposed remedies inevitably create winners and losers....

Opponents of the Affordable Care Act who believe the Supreme Court will declare the law unconstitutional are going to be disappointed next year when a majority of the nine justices vote to uphold it. It will likely be a 5-4 decision, but moderate conservative Anthony Kennedy will, I'm confident, recognize...

If there is one organization that insurers despise and fear more than any other, it surely must be Consumer Watchdog.

Since its founding in 1985, Los Angeles-based Consumer Watchdog has dogged insurers relentlessly and played a key role numerous times in forcing them to change business practices and price their...

The special interests seeking to gut those portions of the health reform law that would be of greatest benefit to consumers clearly believe there is no such thing as historical memory in Washington.

Why else would they bring one of their old front groups out of the storage locker, with...

Support for ObamaCare has fallen to just 34 percent of the American public, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's most recent tracking poll. That's down from 41 percent in just one month.

Can't say I'm surprised. Just as they did during the debate on health care reform in...

I have no inside information about the nature of GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain's relationship with the women who've claimed Cain made unwelcome advances toward them when he headed the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s. I do, however, have first-hand knowledge of a mutually beneficial affair Cain was engaged...