The Nameless Enemy of Healthcare/Health Insurance Reform

Obama shadow boxes with 'enemies' of health plan

You see this nameless line of attack from Obama and the Democrats every day.
It's called demagoguery.

For Obama, a nameless enemy is more useful because it allows people to imagine whatever "well-financed forces" they like as the enemy. It's visceral demagoguery.

Since Obama won't put a name on the enemies of reform, we need to do some detective work. A prime suspect "profiting from the status quo" would be the industry within the medical sector with the highest profit margins, namely the drug makers, which averaged 16.5 percent profit margins last quarter.

But the drug makers have been team players. The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Researchers of America, the largest industry lobbying group in the country, is shelling out $12 million for pro-"reform" ads this summer and fall. Obama has bragged that "even the pharmaceutical industry" is on board.

Doctors? Nope. Obama said in Portsmouth, "We have the American Medical Association on board."

The obvious culprit remaining is the health insurance industry. Why, then, don't Obama or the DNC name the insurers, and their lobby, America's Health Insurance Plans, as the "well-financed forces" profiting from the status quo. Is the president just being polite?

More likely the president doesn't want to name the health insurers as enemies because the industry is lobbying for most of the Democrats' plans -- especially the
subsidies for private insurance and the proposed mandate that everybody buy insurance. The industry dissents on only one proposal: a government insurance
option.