Lay Down With Dogs, You Get Fleas!!

The health insurance companies are learning a hard lesson. You lay down with dogs, you get fleas. What were these guys thinking? For those of you who have only been half following the health care debacle, our stalwart health insurance companies thought they made a deal made in heaven, and it turns out they made a deal with the devil.

When President Obama took office, he made it clear that health care reform was a priority. He immediately tried to build a consensus as to what that reform would look like, and went straight to his view of the problem sources. He went to big Pharma, and told told them if they went along with his proposals he would make sure that Americans would not be allowed to go to Canada to buy cheaper drugs. He went to the doctors, and told them he would stabilize their Medicare reimbursements, or alternatively devise a payment plan that would not decrease their income. He went to the seniors, and told them he would lower supplemental insurance premiums and reduce the drug “donut hole” and not Medicare benefits.

The health insurance companies were lulled into an Obama alliance baited with a huge, new source of insurance customers: those younger than 30 years old that typically don’t carry health insurance. It was to go something like this. Obama’s health care reform would require the insurance company to insure folks with pre-existing conditions at normalized insurance rates that would follow “government guidelines.” In exchange, the government would require everyone to carry insurance. The increased insurance pool would cover the costs of those with pre-existing conditions.

To make it work, Obama told the insurance companies he would be some teeth in the mandate. If you are 21 years old and don’t purchase a government approved insurance plan, you would be fined up to $2,100.00 and face a possible jail term of a year. Oh boy!!! How do you think that went over with those peaches and pie faced young people who chanted for hope and change during last autumn’s election? You got it. It didn’t. They were for hope and change as long as it didn’t cost them anything.

The proposed Baucus Senate plan contained the above mandate and the associated enforcement mechanism. That lasted, however, for about a day when wussie Senate Democrats recoiled in fear of what their constituents would do to them with such a mandate. All of a sudden, the “teeth” part of the mandate dropped from $2,100.00 to $100.00.

So as the plan currently stands, anyone can go in and buy insurance at any time. That means you don’t really have to buy it until you need it. Simply pay the IRS $100.00 and fuggetaboutit. If you get sick, you can always go and buy the insurance as they wheel you into the emergency room…kind of like waiting 'til your house burns down to buy fire insurance.

The insurance companies were aghast that the Senate reversed Obama's promises to them. In a very public move, they presented a Price Waterhouse study showing that it would put them out of business!!!! Do ya think? You don’t have to be a CPA to figure that one out.

But Obama doesn’t care, because that was his plan all along. Now the insurance companies, and the doctors, and the seniors, and the young people are going to learn life’s number one lesson. There is no free lunch. Somebody has to pay. And it is not sitting well with any of these folks who laid down with a dog, and got fleas.