Insurers protect profits at all costs

Jim Riley, Las Vegas

Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.

The only issue in the health care debate is whether there will be a public insurance option. Everything else is smoke. If the insurance lobby wins this time, it will have so much money it will never be challenged again and we will be stuck with the most expensive health care system in the world.

The insurance lobby can depend on every Republican vote in the Senate, so lobbyists will need to influence only about a dozen Democrats. The Republican Party is the party of business, so its members insist that every transaction must have a private company making a profit. They will never vote for a public insurance option.

Pharmaceutical companies are in cahoots with private health insurers to keep drug prices sky high, and together they will spend millions of dollars to defeat a public insurance option.

Sixteen years ago the health insurance lobby, with the Harry and Louise TV ads, killed the Clinton administration’s effort to reform health care. This time the industry has much more money and it will pay millions to lie to us about what will happen if insurance companies lose control of health care.