OT: Healthcare Insurers Get Upper Hand

August 24, 2009

From the front page of this morning's Los Angeles Times. I have

removed some of the paragraphs to shorten the article.

HEALTHCARE INSURERS GET UPPER HAND

Obama's overhaul fight is being won by the industry, experts say. The

end result may be a financial 'bonanza.'

By Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger

August 24, 2009

Some insurance company leaders continue to profess concern about the

unpredictable course of President Obama's massive healthcare

initiative, and they vigorously oppose elements of his agenda. But

Laszewski said the industry's reaction to early negotiations boiled

down to a single word: " Hallelujah! "

The insurers' success so far can be explained in part by their

lobbying efforts in the nation's capital and the districts of key lawmakers.

" The insurers are going to do quite well, " said Blumberg, a

health policy analyst at the nonpartisan Urban Institute, a

Washington think tank. " They are going to have this very stable pool,

they're going to have people getting subsidies to help them buy

coverage and . . . they will be paid the full costs of the benefits

that they provide -- plus their administrative costs. "

Consumer and labor advocates acknowledged the industry's lobbying success.

In the first half of 2009, the health service and HMO sector spent

nearly $35 million lobbying Congress, the White House and federal

healthcare offices, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

With more than 900 lobbyists, that sector -- whose top spenders are

insurance giants UnitedHealth, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Aetna --

was poised to spend more than in 2008, a record lobbying year.

UnitedHealth spent the most, $2.5 million in the first half of 2009,

and hired some of Washington's most prominent political players,

including Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader who served

as an informal health policy advisor to Obama.

" They have beaten us six ways to Sunday, " said Gerald Shea of the

AFL-CIO. " Any time we want to make a small change to provide cost

relief, they find a way to make it more profitable. "

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