Same Old, Same Old

The insurance industry made it abundantly clear this week that it is in the driver's seat -- in both Washington and state capitols -- of one of the most important vehicles created by Congress to reform the U.S. health care system.

The Affordable Care Act requires the states to create new marketplaces -- "exchanges" -- where individuals and small businesses can shop for health insurance. In the 15 months since the law took effect, insurers have lobbied the Obama administration relentlessly to give states the broadest possible latitude in setting up their exchanges. And those insurance companies have been equally relentless at the state level in making sure governors and legislators follow their orders in determining how the exchanges will be operated.

When Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the proposed federal rules governing the exchanges on Monday, insurance executives must have been doing high fives all over the country.

Insurers had several main objectives. First, they did not want the feds to require states to negotiate with health plans on price and benefit design. And they did not want plans that failed to meet certain criteria to be excluded from the exchanges. Insurers did want the states to feel free to appoint people with ties to the industry to run the exchanges.

Consumer advocates didn't think they had much of a chance of denying insurers their first two wishes. But they hoped HHS would at least agree that allowing health insurance executives to serve on exchange boards would create a "foxes-guarding-the hen-house" disaster that lawmakers never intended.

Nowhere are consumer groups more dismayed by the Obama administration's proposed rules than in Colorado, where lawmakers passed a bill that explicitly prohibits the state exchange from negotiating with health plans and where the governor and legislators have just packed the exchange board with industry executives and allies.
~ from Insurance Exchanges Tilted Toward Health Insurers, Not Consumers by Wendell Potter ~

This same scenario plays out over and over and over and over again. A law is enacted to serve the public. Some sort of oversight board or agency is empowered to insure the mandate is followed through and then it is immediately compromised by being packed with corporate executives from the very industry that is supposed to be regulated!! In a nation in which the corporate class has its hands and fingers all over the government, such an outcome should be anticipated to occur every time.

I sure hope the American public can see the pattern that repeats itself. If we want bona fide progressive change, we need to quit looking to government as our savior. While the theory may be laudable, the application is not. All three branches of government are beholden to the upper crust and, consequently, it no longer matters how forward-thinking legislation it is. As soon as we blink our eyes, it will become corrupted.