How Healthcare Got Its Mojo Back

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On the day after Scott Brown’s election victory in Massachussetts, healthcare reform looked dead. Republicans were crowing, public opinion was turning, and Democrats were scurrying for cover like rats in a sewer. So what turned things around? In the LA Times today, Mark Barabak and Duke Helfand argue that Anthem Blue Cross was a big part of it:

Unwittingly, Anthem helped revive Democratic efforts. Every letter it sent out was a political gift for Obama. The only thing missing was a shiny red bow.

….On Super Bowl Sunday, the president appeared on CBS, chatting with Katie Couric….”One of the major insurers in California just announced that in the individual market they’re increasing their premiums by 39%,” Obama said, three days after the story broke. “That’s a portrait of the future if we don’t do something now.”

….For months, Obama had been on the defensive, facing electoral setbacks, declining poll numbers, dissident Democrats and stories that highlighted the deal-making often needed to grind out legislation. Finally, the administration felt it was on offense. “BIG insurance rate increases and MORE coming,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs wrote on his new Twitter account, linking to coverage of the Anthem story. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services, sent a letter to WellPoint challenging the increases, and summoned industry executives to the White House to explain themselves. Obama paid a surprise visit to the meeting, bearing a letter from an Ohio cancer survivor complaining that her premium was rising more than 40% this year. Obama said he planned to carry the letter to public events to remind people of the stakes in the healthcare overhaul.

Well, Anthem certainly didn’t hurt the cause of healthcare reform, that’s for sure. Whether it was really a big bellwether in the other direction is a different question, and one I’m not so sure of. I guess, as in most things, I tend to believe that the turnaround on healthcare was driven mostly by fundamentals: panic subsided, as it usually does; Democrats realized that passing nothing and looking hapless was political suicide; and a plan came together for passage that looked doable — and that had strong backing from the entire party leadership. That probably accounts for 80% of what happened.

But who knows? Maybe 80% wouldn’t have been enough. So thanks, Anthem Blue Cross! Your timing couldn’t have been better if we’d been paying you.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate