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Hillary vs. Insurers

In November, major media focused on the White House-promoted story of "Hillary Rodham Clinton vs. the Insurance Industry." "The First Lady came out swinging, visibly angry as she took on the health insurance industry," said ABC's John McWethy (11/1/93). "Hillary Clinton Accuses Insurers of Lying About Health Proposal," blared a front-page New York Times headline (11/2/93); the Washington Post's followed suit (11/2/93) with "First Lady Lambastes Health Insurers." CNN's Bob Cain (11/3/93) declared that the Clinton administration was "engaged in something close to an all-out war with the health insurance industry."

These stories referred to Rodham Clinton's attack on a $6 million advertising campaign by the Health Insurance Association of America challenging the Clinton plan. What the news outlets didn't mention is that the "Big Five" insurance companies--Aetna, Cigna, Prudential, Metropolitan Life and Traveler's--have withdrawn from HIAA and are generally supportive of the Clintons' health policies. These companies have invested aggressively in Health Maintenance Organizations and other managed care networks, which stand to expand dramatically under the Clinton "managed competition" plan. The "managed competition" theory, in fact, was cooked up by executives of the Big Five and other medical industry leaders in annual meetings held in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The New York Times' Adam Clymer equated HIAA with the "insurance industry" throughout his piece--a particularly egregious error, given that the Times had earlier (2/28/93) run a detailed report on the Jackson Hole Group. The Washington Post's Dana Priest hinted at reality, describing HIAA as a "trade group of mainly medium-sized firms," and later saying that the group "represents 270 medium-and small-sized insurers, many of whom could be put out of business by reform." Insiders will recognize this as a reference to the fact that big insurers stand to profit greatly from the Clinton plan; other readers will remain in the dark.

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Gorgo:
See? Was that so hard?

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Gorgo:
That wasn't the only thing I said. I said that people leave for a lot of reasons. You didn't respond to the point of the post at all.

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Gorgo:
I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that sighing at someone else's inferior status as a subhuman is rude or not?

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And if you paid attention at all, I backed up my argument, which so far Kil has ignored.

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Not all the health industry money is flowing to political candidates and traditional lobbyists. Aetna Life & Casualty, Golden Rule and the Mayo Clinic are among the corporate supporters of the nonprofit Jackson Hole Group, which is credited with the managed competition approach endorsed by Clinton. The Jackson Hole Group has a healthy budget of $600,000, and Paul Ellwood, the group's founder, says he solicited as much as $100,000 apiece from big insurance companies.

This picture of money and politics is incomplete without a look at donations by individuals, who can boost spending well

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For most of its years, the Jackson Hole Group was bankrolled by InterStudy and other tax-exempt entities - such as the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Kaiser Family Foundation. But to enable Jackson Hole to lobby openly for its brand of health reform and to open a Washington outpost, corporate sponsorship was substituted for tax-exempt sponsorship in July 1992. Although the entire list of donors to the $600,000-a-year enterprise isn't available, the known contributors could hardly be called disinterested.

Voluntary Hospitals of America, a trade group of some 1,000 nonprofit hospitals, and General Electric, which makes pricey diagnostic equipment, are among them. So is the Mayo Clinic of Rochester, Minnesota, which also has facilities in Florida, Arizona, Iowa, and Wisconsin. The Golden Rule Insurance Company (which markets PPO policies and, according to The Washington Post, aspires to a larger share of the managed-care market) is on the list, as are insurers such as Metropolitan Life, Aetna, Prudential, and CIGNA, which already own and operate HMO chains.

None of this, of course, explains why candidate Clinton endorsed managed competition and is still hooked on it. However, several considerations may help. One is that Enthoven, like the President, was a Rhodes scholar, making them members of the same mutual-admiration society. Another is the repeated endorsements of the concept - which began well before the November election and have featured Enthoven - in the mighty New York Times. Michael Weinstein, a Stanford alumnus and Enthoven disciple who styles himself an "economics journalist," has been a Jackson Hole participant and is also on the Times editorial board.

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It's not a pretty story. But in the end, I just don't see how one could conclude, based on this attempt for real health care reform, that Clinton approached the plan as a right wing conservative…

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Gorgo:
What I said was, that on these matters, he is what I figure a reasonable conservative would be. Someone who is glad to come up with a plan that makes big business happy. That is exactly how he approached it.

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Sighing is a way to be arrogant. That's all.

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Sometimes sighing is not an arrogant thing. Sometimes it is.

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So you changed you mind? Now are you going to apologize to Kil for making him apologize for something he didn't even really do? Because, you know, I don't think there's been enough apologizing on this thread.

I'm sorry for being so sarcastic. ;-)

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Originally posted by Gorgo

I think if you'll also notice, I did apologize and he did not.

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