Monday, October 4, 2010

Insurance Companies Fill Republican Coffers

Remember back when the health care bill was heavily debated and Republicans tried everything to block the legislation, refusing to even discuss its merits?  Remember when they claimed the Democrats were in the insurance industry's pocket?

An article by Noam N. Levey for the Chicago Tribune ppoints out that since the beginning of the year, insurance companies have given three times more money to Republicans then to Democrats.
"The industry would love to have a Republican Congress," said Wendell Potter, a former executive at Cigna Corp., one of the country's biggest insurers. "They were very, very successful during the years of Republican domination in Washington."

The insurance industry, attracted by the prospect of millions of new customers as a result of the coverage mandate, initially backed President Barack Obama's campaign to overhaul the nation's health care system. And insurers scored a key victory when Democrats abandoned plans to create a new government insurance plan, or public option.

But insurers are increasingly balking at myriad new directives in the health care law.

Among other things, it prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage to sick children and canceling policies when customers get sick. The law bars insurers from placing lifetime caps on how much they will pay when their customers get ill.

Many consumers also will get new rights to appeal denied claims and win new access to preventive care without being asked for co-pays.
Basically, the insurance companies were seduced by the promise of new customers, but now they have a bit of buyers remorse and want to back the GOP, presumably to strip the regulations from the reform so that they could collect money from the personal mandate and be able to deny people at will.  Isn't it a bit hypocritical that Republicans are willing to accept money from companies they had once criticized, for policies they once criticized those companies for being politically involved with?

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