Seriously?
A senior administration official said they weren't yet sure if America's Health Insurance Plans was launching an offensive to try and defeat health care before tomorrow's Senate Finance Committee vote, but was skeptical of AHIP's motivations.
"Given how they behaved in the past, it's very likely they could be up to their old tricks," the official told TPMDC.
....
The official said Ignagni, president and CEO of AHIP, met last Wednesday night with NancyAnn DeParle (director of the White House health office, aka a "czar") and Larry Summers (director of the White House National Economic Council) and did not complain about the issues raised in the report a few days later.
"There was this good conversation going on and she told us she's gotten some experts to take a look at the bill but was a ways away from having anything they were going to put out," the official complained. "Clearly it was in the works."
Their "old tricks" and "how they behaved in the past"? Has the White House really been approaching healthcare reform under the notion that the insurers weren't going into these negotiations with the aim of protecting their fat asses? They negotiated as watered down Baucus bill as they could possibly get, stringing along the White House and Baucus as long as they could. Now that it's looking like reform of some sort is going to happen, they'll go all in trying to kill it. And if it passes anyway? They're already working out the plan for circumventing any reforms that are enacted.
But, by all means, this is the system that must be preserved, the critical industry that couldn't possibly compete with a public insurance program. The arguments against the robust public option are looking more and more hollow by the day.
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