I trust no one is surprised that America's Health Insurance Plans are responding to the formation of the Health Care for America Now Coalition by announcing an incredibly expensive effort to raise "an activist army at least 100,000 strong" to argue that the status quo is pretty good, and folks should be careful not to move too fast. "What do we want? This! When do we want it? Now!" There'll also be a "nationwide listening tour, advertising and an intense recruitment effort aimed at signing up Americans who are satisfied with their private insurance coverage."
For now, the language is all very constructive, and depending on what the final plans look like, it may even stay that way. We're in a period where the various armies are massing on the Potomac and showing how big they are. SEIU is promising $75 million, HCAN has $40 million, the insurers are going to basically hire 100,000 "activists," the pharmaceutical industry will doubtlessly make their threats, and so on. It's definitely a different situation then 1994, when it was only the insurers and manufactures and pharmaceutical, but health care is a multi-trillion industry, and most all of those dollars are somebody's profit stream. They will try and protect those profit streams. But as of yet, no one knows quite the best way to do it. insurers don't know if they should move to full opposition and risk being cut out of the bill or be constructive and try and shape the legislation. Reformers don't know if they should go to war against special interests or stay quiet and wait to follow the presidents lead. So everyone is waving their bank statements around and threatening to do something, sometime.
WAIT! The status quo IS pretty good, for the Healthcare Industry that is.
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