In his Wednesday night address, Obama talked about “health insurance reform” a noticeable shift from the “health care reform” he had been talking up until late last week.
With support for reform softening, Obama attempted to move the conversation away from the talk of taxes, public plans and the other divisive issues dominating Congress and the headlines back to how his reforms would help the 160 million Americans who already have insurance. The pivot was an attempt to reframe the bill as something that directly benefits most Americans, instead of a subsidy for the uninsured.
“I realize that with all the charges and criticisms being thrown around in Washington, many Americans may be wondering, ‘What’s in this for me? How does my family stand to benefit from health insurance reform?’” Obama asked. “This is not just about the 47 million Americans who have no health insurance. Reform is about every American who has ever feared that they may lose their coverage if they become too sick, or lose their job, or change their job.”
Obama used the term 'health insurance reform" in his Saturday radio address and repeated it again on Monday when he jabbed the insurance industry, saying: "Even as America's families have been battered by spiraling health care costs, health insurance companies and their executives have reaped windfall profits from a broken system."
Linda Douglass, a spokeswoman for the White House Office of Health Reform, explained the shift saying, “Much of health reform is health insurance reform: getting rid of pre-existing conditions, discrimination based on age or gender, rescissions, in which insurance companies suddenly withdraw coverage when you get sick.”
But the term also has distinctive political advantages. Insurance reform, insiders say, likely polls better than a more general reform message because it targets something voters know, understand and don’t particularly like. And, it has the added bonus of setting up the insurance industry as a political punching bag.
‘I think they’re pivoting because they’re looking at cratering poll numbers that people are seriously concerned about too much government, too much spending and turning health care over to Washington. And they’re trying to change that story and looking for a boogeyman,” said a health care insider. “People aren’t buying what they’re selling so they’re trying to change the subject.”
Emphasizing insurance reform also allows Obama to begin highlighting insurance market changes as a principal part of reform, and not as an also-ran to its glitzier partner, the government-run health insurance option.
“If Obama’s unable to reach a consensus, a bipartisan package on a public plan and financing, then this may be opening the door to a fallback position of insurance market reform,” said health care consultant Phil Blando. “That may be wishful thinking on my part, but it’s possible.”
Perhaps a bit ironically, Obama’s recent message dovetails with the industry. America’s Health Insurance Plans began airing a national television ad this week that promotes providing affordable coverage for everybody that doesn't deny insurance to those with pre-existing health conditions.
“We agree that health insurance reform is a critical part of health care reform and health insurance reform means getting everyone in, making sure that pre-existing conditions are a thing of the past and that people have a guaranteed source of affordable coverage,” said AHIP spokesman Mike Tuffin.
