Obama Stumps For Health Overhaul, Ripping Insurers

President Obama is back in full campaign mode to drum up support for health overhaul.

At Arcadia University, outside Philadelphia, the president hammered on the insurance industry again Monday. He put denial of coverage because of preexisting conditions and rising premiums—as high as 60 percent in Illinois—in the spotlight again. "Why is it we think this is normal?" he asked, to cheers and applause.

Well, he said, health insurers "have made a calculation" that they'll do better by charging more for insurance policies, even if they lose some customers because of the increases. The president pointed to a recent Goldman Sachs report on the health insurance market to bolster his claims, a new talking point in the administration's attacks on insurers.

 

The report, posted by the New York Times here, features an interview with Steve Lewis, an exec at Willis, an insurance broker.

After a long and pretty much inside-baseball look at the insurance market, Lewis concludes:

I think most people would acknowledge that there's a need for healthcare reform,
employers continue to be very frustrated. So when they look at what the Obama
administration and the Democratic Majority state as their goals to increase access and
lower cost and rail at what maybe termed oligopolistic behavior of carriers in certain
markets, I think employers really buy in to that message and have much of that frustration
and anger at our lack of solutions.

Still, Lewis says, a lot of unhappy business execs fret that the overhaul "medicine" coming out of Washington could be worse than the disease. So, many are beginning to think that "maybe nothing is better than something in this current environment."

Back in Washington, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius kept the heat on insurers with a follow-up letter to some company CEOs she met with last week. She challenged the companies to post justifications on their Web sites for increased premiums proposed for individuals and small businesses.