Obama Takes The Gloves Off
This rant begins with a story.
I just came back from a road trip where I spent two days trying to close out a negotiation I started a year ago. For our little company, it’s big money. Up until yesterday, I thought the number was in the x range over several years. Turns out there are new facts on the ground so it’s y in the range. But still big. The actual amounts don’t matter.
So what does an entrepreneur do? You figure out a way to deliver value to the client under the new constraints. You rescope, rescale, and rethink.
If you were a squad of Marines in a similar situation (and we know that no government employee is capable of doing anything well; that taking a pay check from the taxpayers automatically makes you stupid whereas taking a subsidy or an anti-trust exemption makes you smart), what would they do? Different words but the same thing. You focus on the mission and figure out a way to get it done given the facts on the ground and the resources you have. Sure it might be useful to have close air support but if all you have are M4 carbines, you solve the problem with those.
And if you’re a big player in the health care “industry”, say a large payor, what would you do? After all you believe in free markets, open competition, and the consumers’ right to choose. At least that’s what you’ve been bleating to anyone that will listen for the past oh-so-many years.
Oh, wait, you have an anti-trust exemption. Oh wait, the big decision makers are paid hundreds of times what their employees and customers are, so they’re completely insulated from market forces. You do what you always do! You dig in and fight, not in pursuit of the mission but to pump more fog onto the battle field. You argue that the mission is wrong, that the facts on the ground are irrelevant, that the rules are unfair, that having to compete actually isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, unless it’s under the thick cloak of anti-trust protection.
With that in mind hear me cheering wildly as Obama throws down the gloves. From the NYT . . .
In unusually harsh terms, Mr. Obama cast insurance companies as obstacles to change interested only in preserving their own “profits and bonuses” and willing to “bend the truth or break it” to stop his drive to remake the nation’s health care system. The president used his weekly radio and Internet address to push back against industry assertions that legislation will drive up premiums.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s bogus. And it’s all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, ‘Take one of these, and call us in a decade.’ Well, not this time.”
Rather than trying to curb costs and help patients, he said the industry is busy “figuring out how to avoid covering people. And they’re earning these profits and bonuses while enjoying a privileged exemption from our anti-trust laws, a matter that Congress is rightfully reviewing.”
We are suckers for a national narrative that says what is good for massive bureaucratic companies in consolidated industries that systematically and consistently use their resources to kill off competition, particularly the nimble entrepreneurial kind that would actually drive down costs and improve care—and health care is the poster child for this—is good for the rest of us, even in the face of mountains of evidence that there are superior alternatives.
My read on the latest facts on the ground is that Obama thought he had some sort of deal. Predictably he didn’t. I am really going to enjoy watching what I hope is a first class cage match.
Tags: Obama, healthcare, healthinsurance, cagematch
2 comments
I too was happy that President Obama “took off the gloves” as it relates to the insurance “industry”. But did he? As this debate, if that is really what is going on, continues there are a number of things that I find troubling.
Let me offer up my own story. Being on Medicare I already live with the “public option”. It is confusing, expensive and did I say confusing. Among a number of issues, under the onerous threat of a huge penalty, I am forced to buy Part D drug coverage. I am very lucky and don’t take any prescription medicines so I currently have no need to buy this insurance. The premium just went up 36% – no choice. And don’t get me started on the “donut hole” gap in coverage. Then there is my supplemental insurance policy because Medicare doesn’t cover that much. Even with issues it seems to work. At least everyone over 65 has an insurance option.
When you consider what I pay the government for Medicare, AARP for supplemental and AdvantraRX for Part D my health insurance costs are not cheap, in fact they are close to what I paid for health insurance before Medicare. But it works.
So why this story? My complaint is with the Administration and the Democrat leadership is their lack of telling a clear story that sets the record straight. They have left the door wide open to everyone with a vested interest in the status quo. I was unaware of the antitrust exemption – but why?
If I understand what is being proposed, anyone on Medicare is already there. We would just be expanding the coverage to people who don’t have it and solving the “emergency room” problem. And I haven’t heard anyone suggest that they would give up their Medicare coverage which is far from perfect but it works.
By the way, while I am ranting, the fact that Pricewaterhouse Coopers would prostitute themselves for a fee is a disgrace and disservice to any and every other consultant. It is how our industry has gotten a bad name. As Kevin said, sometimes we need to “rescope, rescale, and rethink” not bend over say “thank you sir, do it again.” Advising a client on what is right and factually correct should be more important than the size of the fee.
Thanks for your good words. To your point, did he really take off the gloves of not? History is written by the victors and this is still a young administration. I really do hope that there is a good tussle.
Leave a Comment