Insurance Industry Execs Privately Admit Public Option Will Not Bankrupt Them - Not Even Close

[babylonsister]

http://www.openleft.com/diary/15352/insurance-industry-execs-privately-admit-public-option-will-not-bankrupt-them-not-even-close

Insurance Industry Execs Privately Admit Public Option Will Not Bankrupt Them - Not Even Close
by: David Sirota
Thu Oct 01, 2009 at 12:00


I know that insurance industry executives are sending their lobbyists to Capitol Hill to claim that a public option will put the insurance industry out of business. And, IMHO, if that was true and the public option became a single-payer system, that would actually be great. But, as the latest edition of the American Medical Association's newsletter reports, the insurance industry in private admits that's not true at all. In fact, insurance execs are saying exactly the opposite to each other in private:

Insurance executives during a September meeting assured investors that, no matter what happens in health system reform, their companies would continue to exist...

"I believe the private system is important because it brings innovation, it brings energy, it brings change, it brings ideas that are often used in the public sector system as well," said Richard Collins, senior vice president for underwriting, pricing and health care economics at UnitedHealthcare. "I think we can have both a public and private system."

So basically, while the insurance industry doesn't want a public option because they know it will cut into their astronomical profits, that same industry is also privately acknowledging that a public option will not come close to putting them out of business. It may reduce their profits from "astronomical" to "solid" but again, as the insurance industry admits, "we can have both a public and private system."

[Ruby the Liberal]

1. To the 5 pantywaists on the Finance Committee

Read 'em & weep.

Thanks for nothing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Read between the lines

they KNOW they are not going to win in the end, so they are preparing their investors for less profits...

This is at least my tea readying for the afternoon.

[babylonsister]

3. I hope your tea-reading chops are honed. That'd be sweet. nt

[KansDem]

4. I think you're right...

they KNOW they are not going to win in the end...

All this mayhem has been for posturing only. And your observation makes sense...