Is Obama Planning to Sign Congress' Health Care Reform Bill With Lipstick?

Over the coming weeks, Americans will find out whether the man they elected their president is just a great orator and politician or whether he is also a great leader.

Two of the central features of candidate Barack Obama's health care proposal was one thing he said was essential -- a public insurance option to compete with the private insurance industry that is now dominated by a cartel of Wall Street-driven, for-profit behemoths -- and one thing he said he would not support -- a requirement that all of us be forced by law to buy overpriced health coverage from private insurance companies.

Many of the people who voted for Obama did so because they believed his health care proposal was the best among the field of Democratic candidates and -- no contest here -- far better than the insurance industry-backed plans advocated by the Republicans.

Obama was not alone in calling for a public insurance option. So did Hillary Clinton, among others. About the only thing that distinguished Obama's plan from Clinton's, in fact, was his opposition to forcing all of us to buy health insurance. "Why should we force people to buy something they can't afford?" he asked repeatedly on the campaign trail.

After listening to the speeches he made in Montana and Arizona and to comments made by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, on the Sunday morning talk shows, I'm wondering what happened to the guy Americans elected.

Having worked in the health insurance industry for nearly 20 years, I know Obama and Clinton were right in insisting that a public health insurance plan is vital to reform. A public plan not only will serve to "keep the private insurers honest," as Obama used to say before he started waffling, but it will also provide millions of people who now have no insurance at all with good coverage at a more affordable price. That's because the big for-profit insurers waste increasingly big chunks of your premium dollars on nonessential things like exorbitant CEO salaries and profits for the big institutional investors who own them. A public plan would not waste your precious dollars that way.

But unless I missed it -- and I even read the transcript of his comments to make sure I didn't -- Obama never even mentioned the public insurance option in his opening remarks in Montana, where he stood just a few feet away from one of the insurance industry's biggest friends in Congress, Sen. Max Baucus.

The president finally seemed obligated to mention it in the Q&A session. In response to a question from a man who lost his insurance when he lost his job, Obama said this of the public insurance option, using language that would make you think some well-meaning but naïve freshman congressman just recently came up with the idea:

And one of the options that's being debated is, should there be a public option, all right? (Applause.) And I want to -- I want to just explain this briefly, because this is where the whole myth of a government takeover of health care comes from. And not everybody -- not even every Democrat -- agrees on the public option, but I just want at least people to be informed about what the debate is about.

The idea is, if you go to that marketplace and you're choosing from a bunch of different options, should one of the options be a government-run plan that still charges you premiums? You still have to pay for it just like private insurance, but government would not -- this government option would not have the same profit motive. It would be obviously like a non-for-profit. It would have potentially lower overhead, so it might be able to give you a better deal, should you be able to choose from that option among many others. That's what the debate is about. (Applause.)

Now, what the opponents of a public option will argue is, you can't have a level playing field; if government gets into the business of providing health insurance, they will drive private insurers out of the health insurance market. That's the argument that's made. (Applause.) And I -- that is a legitimate, it's a fair concern, especially if the public option was being subsidized by taxpayers, right? I mean, if they didn't -- if they could just keep on losing money and still stay in business, after a while they would run everybody else out. And that's why any discussion of a public option has said that it's got to pay for itself, it's not subsidized by private insurers.

I don't know about you, but to me that sounds an awful lot like a guy who is trying to talk himself -- and us -- out of the best idea he and many others in the Democratic party have come up with to reform our badly broken, profit-driven health care system.

Less than 48 hours after setting us up for his soon-to-be-even-more-obvious capitulation to the demands of the insurance industry, the New York Times reported in its online edition that the Obama administration had begun sending signals "that it has backed away from its once-firm vision of a government organization to provide for the nation's 50 million uninsured and is now open to using nonprofit cooperatives instead."

Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, said on Sunday morning that an additional government insurer is "not the essential element" of the administration's plan to overhaul the country's health care system.

"I think there will be a competitor to private insurers," she said on CNN's State of the Union. "That's really the essential part, is you don't turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing. We need some choices, we need some competition."

Her less-than-forceful insistence on a government insurance organization was paralleled by Robert Gibbs, the president's press secretary.

"What I am saying is the bottom line for this for the president is, what we have to have is choice and competition in the insurance market," he said on CBS's Face the Nation.

Not only is Obama clearly ready to throw the public option overboard, he is embracing the requirement that we all be forced to buy insurance from private insurers -- using your tax dollars and mine to pay subsidies to the big insurers to provide coverage to people who can't afford to buy their policies because the big insurers charge far more than they should because Wall Street investors demand that they do.

One of the people who undoubtedly talked Obama away from the public option and into supporting this mandate is his new BFF, Aetna CEO Ron Williams. Williams, who made $65 million off of Aetna's policyholders' premiums over the past two years and who was the mastermind behind Aetna's shedding of eight million members a few years ago to meet Wall Street's demands, is the insurance industry's leading champion of requiring us all to buy insurance. And, of course, without a public option, we'll all be forced to buy coverage from Aetna or one of the other private insurers.

According to a recent article in Forbes, Williams has been to the White House a half a dozen times recently to advise the president and his staff on health care reform. That same article quoted a Wall Street analyst as saying that Aetna likely will dump about 600,000 policyholders during the coming months to satisfy its investors' unrelenting profit demands.

During his speech in Montana, Obama talked a lot of trash about the insurance industry. Don't be fooled by that tough talk. It's all part of a strategy to try get us to believe we'll get the reform he promised during the campaign. Industry leaders are in fact delighted he's denouncing their behaviors because they believe most of his supporters -- who were hopeful the stars might finally have aligned for real reform -- will indeed be fooled into thinking the reform bill that reaches his desk will benefit them more than the special interests with their armies of lobbyists. And they know the nonprofit cooperatives Sebelius and Gibbs are now trying to sell us on don't have a prayer of succeeding. The big for-profits will never let them get off the ground in any meaningful way.

Sadly, I believe the fat cats are winning and that the bill Congress sends the president will be one that gives an industry with an unsustainable business model a new lease on life and a guarantee of unprecedented future profits.

So I hope the president's aides are buying lots of lipstick. He'll need all he can get to put on that pig of a bill.

Link to Obama's Montana remarks:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-in-town-hall-on-health-care-Belgrade-Montana/

Link to New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/health/policy/17talkshows.html?hp
Link to Forbes article:
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0824/outfront-insurance-premiums-aetna-ron-williams-health-reform.html

Follow Wendell Potter on Twitter: www.twitter.com/wenpotter

Comments

[nccp1870]

Let's hear more from this guy. He knows the business and understands the politics.

Put him up under Health Care on a daily basis for the duration

[jbatch]

Mr. Potter:

thank you for your courage, your insight and your integrity -- they are rare commodities these days.

[Scarborian]

Now I'm really angry, where's the nearest town-hall meeting?

How do you trust an administration that is more concerned with the health of the insurance companies than with the health of the people?

We already have "not for profit" health plans, Kaiser Permanente runs a very successful one and it's costs are much lower than the "for profit" insurance companies but there are still many people who cannot afford the premiums and co-pays.

What happened to universal health care?

What happened to "Yes we can!"**

**Once elected, the candidate reserves the right to substitute promises of equal or lesser value"

[Montanagramma]

With the waffling on health care public option, the health insurance companies stocks rallied Monday. Easy to see that they expect to make lots of cash with no public option. Whose cash?? Your's and mine, of course. They see dollar signs in their future. That means we are going down the tubes fuerther without the public option. What a massive disappointment this is.

[Dynamohum]

Wendall I have voraciously viewed and read every bit of information you have given to us about this subject. I truly believe that without a public option there will be no reform. That is the reform. I am just wondering if all these comments from his Cabinet, Congress and pundits aren't just a bit premature. While we all want a public option, the fact that there is not one bill from either house that is directly up for a vote yet, isn't this all just SPECULATION at this point?

We are just in the EARLY stages of this process and already everybody would have us at their repsective finish lines!!

Sir, you are an inspiration in the middle of this battle. Thank you for your efforts to bring about substantative debate and consensus. You have shown a light on some of the darker areas of what is really going on in America. You expose'd the free healthcare fairs in rural and metropolitan areas, and that story finally made it to the mainstream over the weekend. You have a great pulpit, hang on to it and keep hammering the point home......­Public Option.

[deepfreezevideo]

I want President Obama to kiss me after he uses that lipstick, because as an Obama voter I get the distinct impression that I've just BEEN SCREWED.

[youknow]

I do not know if many people realize this, but for me this waffling on Health Care is causing me extreme and dangerous stress. I wonder how many people will actually die because of the lack of Pres. Obama's Gumption? It is time for him to BE the President of the people and not the representative of the Republicans. Stop listening to his advisors and make up his own mind. IT IS TIME to stick to his promises, we do not need a President that lies to the American People.

[Dynamohum]

It is all very nerve racking. It is difficult because political games are being played with healthcare. None of us know truly what Obama's strategy or logic is, only he does. Until this process is in the later stages we won't know where the chips will fall. Try to relax, deep breath and keep the pressure on your respective Congress critters about your wishes.

[krocklin]

Yes. I share your stress in the position I am in. But as Potter says sadly we are only in the early stages of getting a real public option. It will be too late for me and you.
Stress is increasing among many.

The majority don't care.

[robbep]

Mr Potter we dont need the next few weeks to figure out if Obama is just another politician with a pretty voice ( i still think bill is much better) or a strong leader we already know the answer to that. He is as weak as water and has no core convictions that he will fight for. It is up to the democrats in the house to save him from himself bcz if they don't the democratic party is going to be subserviant to the republican party for the next 3.5 years.

[ntmessage]

It seems that Clinton was right and Obama is the one that is watering down and further propagating the most wasteful and largest industry in the planet. Without Cost and Quality metrics, a robust government option and oversight, we are simply growing an already inefficient system with a indefensible business model (The industry gets all the profits and the government gets all the costs) even larger. A system that costs 18% of GDP and growing in a depression, when the rest of the world have models that cost 7-8% and have better outcomes. If Obama really is the so called Manchurian candidate, then we now know who he is working for. The Health Care Industry.

[neoprimordial]

Sir, it is truly a great honor to be able to tell you what a tremendous act it is on your part in testifying before Congress about the abuses of the health insurance industry. All that you continue to do is crucial to this national debate we're having over health care reform. You have my greatest respect. You're up there in my pantheon with Richard A. Clarke (former U.S. chief for counterterrorism).

I'm dismayed by your view that the "fat cats are winning." It's not looking so good, I agree. We the American people need to do something about this. Here and there on Huffpost people are suggesting we march / protest / stand up and be counted. I say that's an excellent idea. On the day that Congress returns from its August recess, we need to be there by the hundreds of thousands and millions *demanding* a public option, in Washington, D.C. and on the steps of every capitol building in every state in the nation.

Tuesday, September 8th, is only three weeks away. We need to do this, for our own sake and for the future of this country.

[lastpost]

If funding healthcare with tax dollars creates an imbalance to the detriment of insurance companies. Isn’t that disadvantage more than compensated for, by the ability of the insurance companies to cherry-pick those clients who do not pose a disproportionate risk to their profit margins?

Perhaps Barack needs to appear before the American people, and reveal the depths to which this supposed democracy has descended. Explaining in detail precisely who is running the country, how, and to what end, might bring the matter to a head.
If an unelected oligarchy usurps power from the people, then the military arm of government must come to that nation‘s aid.

[bobh]

You do wonder how reforms like ending cherry-picking, recission, etc. would impact insurer profits.
You also wonder whether they can be trusted to abide by reforms they agree to.

[usna73]

Nothing to wonder about. When they get the premiums from a mandate for all to buy insurance ( no matter who pays) it will be a windfall. Another transfer of payments and reward for prior bad behavior. We are a badly leaking ship that will never make it back to port.

[LiberalDem]

The insurance companies won't abide by any reforms to which they allegedly agree. It's been 16 years since the Clinton WH tried to tackle health care reform, and in those years health care has become more expensive and more Americans go without health insurance each year.

As long as there is no meaningful public option the insurance companie will continue to do what the GOP and teabaggers claim the government would do: ration health care.

[ladycubsfan]

Mr. Potter,

Thank you for speaking out. It took a lot of courage. I had my eyes opened during your Bill Moyers interview. When it comes to insurance company tactics... who knows better than you, a former Rep., the lengths they will go to to keep the status quo?
Don't give up on our president! But, please do continue to hold his feet to the fire! If anyone can get through, you can!

[Meteor]

You can't "keep the private insurers honest" because they are not honest now. Health care providers are not honest either, as any hospital bill clearly shows. Disaster capitalism is the short cut to disaster. This is one war we cannot export. A country incapable of being honest with itself is in serious decline.

"A public plan not only will serve to "keep the private insurers honest," as Obama used to say before he started waffling, but it will also provide millions of people who now have no insurance at all with good coverage at a more affordable price. That's because the big for-profit insurers waste increasingly big chunks of your premium dollars on nonessential things like exorbitant CEO salaries and profits for the big institutional investors who own them. A public plan would not waste your precious dollars that way."

[marxmarv]

I have very rarely heard the phrase "keep honest people honest" used where there was no history of actual dishonesty.

[Mason]

It's the MOTHER OF ALL PIGS!