Health Insurance Parasites Unmask

After months of conning the President with promises of cooperation, the thieves who siphon off one out of every three dollars spent on health care are finally out in the open as reform legislation comes up for its first Congressional vote.

"In a blistering new attack," the New York Times reports, "the health insurance industry said Sunday that health care legislation drafted by Senate Democrats would drive up premiums, rather than making coverage more affordable, as the White House contends."

The industry lobby, America’s Health Insurance Plans, gave its verdict on the bill to be voted on by the Senate Finance Committee after weeks of wrangling and watering down:

“The overall impact will be to increase the cost of private insurance coverage for individuals, families and businesses above what these costs would be in the absence of reform.”

Wrong, but only what was to have been expected of the profiteers who hold Americans' lives hostage to their greed.

As late as Saturday, in his weekly address, President Obama was touting industry cooperation: "What's remarkable is not that we've had a spirited debate about health insurance reform, but the unprecedented consensus that has come together behind it."

Critics will call this naïveté, as unrealistic as Obama's hopes for bipartisanship on other issues, but it may be seen as going the extra mile to reach out for "consensus" that never comes at moments of decision, even after lip service to cooperation.

Now, the White House and the Democrats who control Congress can end the charades and get down to old-fashioned bare knuckles politics in pushing through what remains of health care reform.