Stan Geiger

A Snake in the Health Care Grass?

The big health care show takes place in Washington today.

The House passed an unpopular behemoth bill. The Senate passed an unpopular behemoth bill. Obama basically sat things out. The people of Massachusetts dropped a Brown bomb. Now Obama has put forth a proposal, a proposal that looks a lot like the congressional proposals.

Health care reform, in its current form at least, was dead in the water. Republicans called for scrapping the current proposals and starting over. I agree with the Republicans. Obama and most of the Dems, however, want one more shot at it. Hence the summit. I doubt anything will come of it.

But something happened along the way that was very interesting.

After passage of the Senate bill, I saw news reports trumpeting soaring stock prices for health care companies. The health insurers were happy. They were expecting passage of a national mandate for health insurance coverage that would do them a lot of good by forcing healthy people to pay thousands a year in premiums while rarely---if ever---putting in claims.

If the process starts again from scratch, the health insurers will likely lose their precious mandate.

So, all of the sudden, a major health insurer operating in the key state of California bumped its rates by as much as 39 percent. I saw a woman interviewed that said her monthly premiums went from about $500 a month to a little over $700.

The move created public outrage. The national news blasted the story all over the country. Obama warned this would just be the beginning if a behemoth bill doesn't get passed. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs mentioned Anthem in an interview this morning.

I find the timing of Anthem's massive rate hike most suspect.

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