Ah - sweet sweet schadenfreude!!

[Logan Darklighter]

Dartz wrote:

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No matter which 'law' wins... ultimately the true winner will be the insurance companies and hospitals. The only difference is who gets screwed over in their favour.

Oh indeed. I'm not crying for these people, needless to say. They helped make ObamaCare happen. They were only too happy to see healthy young adults forced into buying their product by a constitutionally dubious mandate and to gouge healthy middle-class people with the new, more expensive plans required by the exchanges. They wouldn’t have partnered with the White House if this wasn’t a payday for them. But now they’re screwed twice over: Not only are Democrats trying to make them the fall guy for the cancellations, they’re looking at their payday melting down into red ink if they take Obama’s “advice” and re-create the old risk pool. Oh well. No honor among thieves.
They're certainly not taking it lying down, though.

WASHINGTON — The health insurance industry is
already attacking a White House fix to Obamacare on Thursday even before
the plan is formally announced by the president.
“This doesn’t
change anything other than force insurers to be the political flack
jackets for the administration,” said an industry insider. “So now when
we don’t offer these policies the White House can say it’s the insurers
doing this and not being flexible.”

And then - not too long after that, the president of America’s Health Insurance Plans released this statement:

“Making sure consumers have secure, affordable coverage
is health plans’ top priority. The only reason consumers are getting
notices about their current coverage changing is because the ACA
requires all policies to cover a broad range of benefits that go beyond
what many people choose to purchase today.

“Changing the rules after health plans have already met the requirements of the law could destabilize the market and result in higher premiums for consumers.
Premiums have already been set for next year based on an assumption of
when consumers will be transitioning to the new marketplace. If now
fewer younger and healthier people choose to purchase coverage in the
exchange, premiums will increase and there will be
fewer choices for consumers. Additional steps must be taken to
stabilize the marketplace and mitigate the adverse impact on consumers.”

There’s no policy upside for Democrats in supporting the idea; it’s pure political CYA, and insanely short-sighted in that it’ll only compound their political problem next year if AHIP’s prediction is borne out and exchange plans become even more expensive.

Rich Lowry has an idea about why this has become so politically dangerous to O. It’s harder for Democrats to hide the football this time.

The great engine of the welfare state is the hidden cost. Usually, the costs of a new program or regulation are too diffuse or distant to matter much politically in comparison to the promise of a direct benefit. This time, the costs aren’t hidden. They are immediate and concrete in the canceled policies and the higher premiums, and they are making the politics of Obamacare toxic.

When otherwise loyal Democrats are on TV seething over being lied to about what’s obviously a subsidization scheme, you know things have gone badly wrong with the usual M.O.