The War on Health Insurance
by Robert Tracinski, editor, www.TIADaily.com

"The goal of the Democrats' plan for health-care reform is coming more and more
out into the open: they want to eliminate health insurance.

Barney Frank has been caught on video admitting that the "public option," which
is the centerpiece of the current legislation, is just a step toward what is
called a "single-payer" system—a euphemism meant to hide the fact that the
single payer is the government.

(Frank was prompted into the admission by an advocate of "single payer" who
opposes the current bill because it doesn't socialize medicine fast enough—which
gives you an idea of the contrary pressures on the Democratic leadership.)

It turns out that this is the key kernel of opposition to the Obama health-care
bill among the general public. People do not want to be forced out of their
existing private health insurance. They are terrified of being deprived of any
options other than government-provided health care.

So the Democrats' answer to this has been, not to reassure people that they will
be allowed to keep their existing coverage—since this lie has proven too
transparent to maintain—but instead to vilify the health-insurance companies.

As the article below describes, this is the line of attack the Democrats have
chosen as they go into the August recess: private health-insurance companies are
evil, and the Democrats are here to save us from them.

You can see this reflected among the left's supporters in the press, as in a
sneering hatchet job in the LA Times, in which insurance companies are accused
of—well, it's not all that clear what they're accused of, except maybe being
"functional monopolies."

That's pretty rich when you consider that the left's preferred plan would
mandate a "single payer"— the very definition of a monopoly.

One of the benefits we have, of course, is that the Democrats themselves are in
some degree of internal disarray. They gained a majority in Congress by
recruiting a large number of conservative Democrats from "red state" districts,
and this has set off a clash between the leftists and the "Blue Dogs."

But don't be fooled. Note that most of the proposals preferred by the Blue Dogs
are just less direct attacks on health insurance. For example, two of the main
regulations the Democrats are seeking to impose on insurers are that they will
be forced to cover individuals for pre-existing conditions, and that they will
be banned from charging higher rates for those at a higher risk of illness.

This is an attack on the whole idea of insurance as such. It's like forcing
companies to offer you insurance on your automobile after you've already gotten
into an accident, or requiring them to offer the same auto insurance rate to a
teenage boy as to a middle-aged woman with a spotless driving record. That's a
fast way to make an insurance company go broke.

These provisions also clearly indicate why the Democrats oppose health
insurance. Insurance is a capitalist model based on the idea that people are
independent individuals who should be expected—and allowed—to pay their own way.
The left's model, by contrast, is welfare, in which everyone is taxed to pay for
benefits that are doled out equally by the government, from each according to
his ability and to each according to his need. It is a collectivist model.

The essence of the current legislative crusade is to force insurance companies
to act as if they are government welfare agencies—and then when the insurance
companies collapse, the government will drop the pretense and have the welfare
agencies take over. It is a war on health insurance—and a war on the independent
individual.

"Two Sides Take Health Care Debate Outside Washington," Sheryl Gay Stolberg and
David M. Herszenhorn, New York Times, August 2

With Republicans mobilizing against the proposed health care overhaul, President
Obama, Congressional Democrats and leading advocacy groups are laying the
groundwork for an August offensive against the insurance industry as part of a
coordinated campaign to sell the public on the need for reform.

The effort will feature town-hall-style meetings by lawmakers and the president,
including a swing through Western states by Mr. Obama, grass-roots lobbying
efforts and a blitz of expensive television advertising. It is intended to drive
home the message that revamping the health care system will protect consumers by
ending unpopular insurance industry practices, like refusing patients with
pre-existing conditions.

"I think what we want to communicate is that this is going to give people who
have insurance a degree of security and stability, the protection that they
don't have today against the sort of mercurial judgments of insurance
bureaucrats," said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, adding, "Our
job is to help folks understand how this will help them."…

Revamping health care is the president's top legislative priority, and people on
all sides of the debate agree that August, when lawmakers leave Washington to
take the pulse of constituents, will be crucial to shaping public opinion. With
Republicans making headway by casting the legislation as a costly government
takeover, Democrats have decided they must answer the question on the minds of
those now insured: "What's in it for me?"

That has led to a campaign of increasingly harsh rhetoric against the insurance
industry, which says it favors an overhaul but is working to defeat Mr. Obama's
call for a government-run insurance plan to compete against the private sector.
On Friday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, promised a "drumbeat
across America" to counter what she termed a "shock and awe, carpet-bombing by
the health insurance industry to perpetuate the status quo."…

The current message is an eight-point list of "Health Insurance Consumer
Protections" the White House Web site promises will "bring you and your family
peace of mind." Mr. Obama picked up on the theme last week, promising members of
AARP that he would "reform the insurance companies so they can't take advantage
of you."…

Polls show that the public is growing uneasy; a New York Times/CBS News survey
last week found that while Mr. Obama still has strong support for revamping
health care, Americans are concerned that an overhaul would reduce the quality
of care, increase out-of-pocket costs and tax bills and limit their options in
choosing doctors.

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