It begins

It seems a little late, but I guess even nefarious, money grubbing plans to kill any health care reform were delayed by the interminable bullshit that goes on in the Senate Finance Committee. Yes, the insurance industry is deciding to come out and poison the debate as best it can: by claiming your insurance rates are going to go up, up, up.

After working for months behind the scenes to help shape health care reform, the insurance industry is now sharply attacking the emerging plan with a report that maintains Senate legislation would increase the cost of a typical policy by hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars a year.
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Late Sunday, the industry trade group America's Health Insurance Plans sent its member companies a new accounting firm study that projects the legislation would add $1,700 a year to the cost of family coverage in 2013, when most of the major provisions in the bill would be in effect.
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"Several major provisions in the current legislative proposal will cause health care costs to increase far faster and higher than they would under the current system," Karen Ignagni, the top industry lobbyist in Washington, wrote in a memo to insurance company CEOs.

The study projected that in 2019, family premiums could be $4,000 higher and individual premiums could be $1,500 higher.

My God, if a lobbyist said it then it must be true. Just one question though, since I seemed to have misplaced my slide rule and abacus: is this more or less than health care premiums have risen over the past decade and will continue to rise over the next decade? Because it seems about the same. So is that the argument? "Unless we scuttle this health care bill we will see a rise in health care costs almost indistinguishable from what is already going on." Isn't this essentially an argument for why the current bill shouldn't be so beneficial to the health insurance industry, should try to make actual reforms instead of timid incremental garbage, and should, I don't know, provide some sort of public option in order to compete with the insurance costs that the insurance companies are saying are going to keep going up for a bill without a public option? I'm sure our elected betters will get right on top of that.

Speaking of our elected betters: weren't all those concessions you made to the health insurance industry (along with the pharmaceutical industry and every other health care industry) supposed to garner their support? Or were those ads we saw once a few months ago all of it? Or is this just another example of Democrats making concessions in order to get the support of groups that never end up supporting them and actively work against them? I think we know the answer to that. Bang up job once again Democrats!