March 19th / 21st, 2010
"Obama, Perdue Should Freeze Premiums"
Last year Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm issued Executive Directive
number 2009-1, which ordered a freeze on auto insurance rate increases.
Her directive went largely unnoticed by the mainstream media, but it
provided a lesson in how to govern effectively during a crisis. President Obama
and Governor Perdue could learn from that lesson by enacting emergency
directives to freeze all health insurance premiums immediately.
While I'd like to take credit for advancing this radical idea, the chief
proponent for a freeze is Harvey Rosenfield, founder of Consumer Watchdog.
Rosenfield, you may recall, was the architect of California's proposition
103, which is widely recognized as the most successful insurance regulation
in the country. Now he is campaigning for a national freeze on health
insurance premiums.
Rosenfield went on the warpath after Anthem Blue Cross recently raised
premiums on some golden state customers by as much as 39% to 69%.
Unfortunately, such abuses are not confined to California. State by state,
companies like Blue Cross, Aetna, Cigna, and United Health Care (and their
various incarnations) legally conspire to set (and routinely raise)
premiums on customers who are powerless to fight back. The result has been
devastating for millions of American families.
Medical bills are now the number one cause of bankruptcies and
foreclosures. Moreover, approximately 10,000 people lose their health insurance every
day because they can no longer pay the rising premiums. This has also led
to thousands of unnecessary deaths each year because people with treatable
diseases and conditions couldn't afford treatment.
Elected officials from both parties are well aware of the horror stories
wrought by our broken healthcare system. At President Obama's summit two
weeks ago, Republicans and Democrats recounted instances where constituents
had suffered or died because they couldn't afford insurance or the care it
could have provided. And last week as the President finally started to get
aggressive with his push for an up or down vote on reform, the White House
and Capitol Hill were treated to staged visits from victims of the healthcare
crisis. But these testimonials and photo ops will provide little comfort
to victims of insurance vultures unless politicians get over the gridlock
and act quickly to stem abuses.
In the meantime, Rosenfield is calling for Mr. Obama to enact a freeze on
insurance premiums at or below 2009 levels, with a guarantee that the
public will have the right to further relief in the future. Such a freeze could
be effected immediately with an executive order, which can bypass
obstructionist Congressmen who have been bought and paid for by the health insurance
lobby. Concurrently, every Governor could sign a similar directive,
leaving state legislatures no room to wiggle out of the federal order. Absent
these executive orders and gubernatorial directives, millions of Americans
will be forced to drop their health insurance and leave their families
unprotected against the ravages of disease, bankruptcy, and foreclosure.
We might not be able to stop insurance lobbyists from blocking a
comprehensive healthcare reform package altogether, but we can at least hope that
our President and Governor will use their unique powers to enact a key
element of that reform, even if it means having to stand up to the very interests
that helped get them elected. Let's just see if they're strong enough to
take the heat for a freeze.
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