Pelosi to Insurers: Get On Board With the Government Takeover Or There Will Be Dire Consequences

The time for debate is over.

So is the time for studies demonstrating PelosiCare will increase premiums by a cumulative $20,700 between 2013 and 2019.

Or else.

Or else Nancy Pelosi just might want to investigate the industry for antitrust violations.

No longer able to sit idly by while the President and his chief minion in the House amateurishly try to revamp one-sixth of the U.S. economy, the health insurance industry released a study they commissioned that analyzes the costs of the Obama-Pelosi plan. The results are quite sobering. The study shows that "between 2010 and 2019 the cumulative increases in the cost of a typical family policy under this reform proposal will be approximately $20,700 more than it would be under the current system." (Emphasis mine.)

Rather than challenge the study's results on merit, Obama and Pelosi wasted no time demonizing the health insurance industry with hyperbole and rhetoric. And then Pelosi lowered the boom, expressing "tremendous interest" in revoking the industry's decades-old antitrust exemption. This proved to be no empty threat, as the Democrat-run House Judiciary Committee promptly passed a bill to do exactly that.

Now, curtailing the health insurance industry's limited exemption from federal antitrust laws may or may not be good policy. But given the circumstances, this is beside the point.

The real issue is that Obama and Pelosi are using the power of Congress to muzzle the speech of a private sector industry, First Amendment be damned. It couldn't be more blatant. Stay quiet about their disaster of a health plan, and Obama and Pelosi will leave you alone. Point out how their plan will actually make matters worse, and Obama and Pelosi will hit you back with new laws that hurt your business.

If there are antitrust questions here, shouldn't they be investigated either way?

What is this apparent linkage? If you play ball we won't look into it, if you don't, we will?

posted by Ace at 02:28 PM

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