Health Insurance Mandate - beyond Party Politics

Today's ruling by Virginia's district court Federal Judge, Henry Hudson, that mandating health insurance is unconstitutional was followed by a barrage of school-ground politics, none of which had anything to do with the cost of health care or health insurance for most of the population, including a bulk of the uninsured.

It was heralded by conservatives as a "good day for liberty" gleefully praised by GOP heavies from Senator Orrin Hatch to incoming House Speaker, John Boehner. On the flip-side, it was viewed by progressives as some depressing reminder of Obama's political impotence and duly deflected by the White House as a ruling that won't change the implementation of the mandated aspect of health care law since it won't take effect until 2014. 

Completely lost in all the feather puffing and ruffling was the actual economics of mandated health insurance. Both parties remain blinded by usual bullshit partisanship at the expense of discussing financial realities.  No matter what the political rhetoric or reasoning, mandated health insurance absent insurance premium caps is bad economics for every American that doesn't have a company or a taxpayer footing their complete insurance bill. This is the case whether they consider themselves conservative, progressive or libertarian. Blue Cross Blue Shield, the nation's largest insurance conglomerate, covering 100 million people, does not care how any of them vote, or if they vote at all. Neither does any other insurance company.

Early this fall, I,  and apparently 90 million other Americans covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield received notice that our premiums would be rising by 14% due to the health care reform bill and a litany of other reasons that boiled down to the fact that we're human and haven't died yet. Under that rate of premium hiking, by the time mandated insurance took effect, our premiums would have nearly doubled, with no guarantee that the coverage would remain unaltered, or that the cost of care wouldn't rise in such a way as to ensure that our coverage is less comprehensive for double the price. True, the language of the reform bill ensures coverage of young adults under their parents' plan for longer, but it does not set limits to the cost of their parents plan. The language ensures that insurers can not turn away anyone with a pre-existing condition, butit  doesn't cap the cost of not being turned away.  Absent caps, the Democrats just didn't draft a very good bill, no matter how many grins Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid produced when it passed. 

Equally, GOP leaders, smug in the knowledge that their insurance premiums, no matter how high they rise, are covered by us (as are those of the Dems) are screwing their own constituents. In addition to not suggesting an alternative to mandating insurance coverage for all and thus finding a way for all of us to have coverage, they are not even acknowledging that cost, not constitution, is the real problem.

Meanwhile, insurance companies will keep raising premiums whether health insurance is mandated or not. Why? Because they can, and neither party seems willing to do anything about it - for obvious reasons. They have a win-win situation regardless of mandates. The top ten CEOs of health insurance companies collected $228 million in 2009, up from $85.5 million in 2008, and $1 billion in total over the past decade. Neither party thinks that has anything to do with the high cost of insurance either, or will do anything about it.  The only solution, in the case of health care, is to take that kind of profit motive out of the equation, not feed the beast.