As carefully choreographed as it was, there was still some slight fear in the insurance community that healthcare "reform" might actually end up reforming something. This morning the NYT Business section was crowing with delight that insurers had dodged a bullet aimed in the opposite direction. This is the first sentence:
With a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health care system, Congress would be giving the health care industry as many as 32 million additional paying customers in the next few years.
So "overhaul" is now defined as providing victims for health insurance ripoff teams. Glad they got their priorities straight. I was concerned that somebody might think it necessary to rein in obscene profits and dirty tricks but it turns out that wasn't even on the agenda, let alone at the top of it. Here's what was:
[S]ome analysts said as the vote neared that the final legislation was shaping up as much kinder to the industry than many initially feared. Hospitals and drug makers, which supported the final legislation, would be clear beneficiaries, analysts say, even if the outlook for insurers was less certain.
Yet the bill would not create the thing that insurers feared most: a government-run public option, a health plan that would compete with the private insurers.
Over all, the legislation would be a positive for much of the industry, said Les Funtleyder, who oversees health care strategy for Miller Tabak & Company, a New York investment firm.
So y'all kin ree-lax. The Healthcare Kabuki performed by Democrats has successfully evaded any chance that people might be served over profits. Meanwhile the so-called "progressive" community is busily patting itself on the back for its passage, calling it "historic", and lauding Obama's "grassroots" campaign org along with actual grassroots orgs like HCAN. Meanwhile, President Obama will be taking a "cross-country victory lap" (apparently we're all assuming the Senate will rubber-stamp the House-passed bill, given that it is essentially the same very industry-friendly bill they already passed and that Blue Dogs demanded not be changed by so much as a single word), bragging about the "win" that even Robert Reich (who really ought to know better - and did just a couple of weeks ago) felt compelled to call "the biggest thing Congress has done in decades" with "enormous political significance for the future".
Uh-huh. (All links courtesy of the so-called "progressive" outfit, Campaign for America's Future or CAF.)
Now that we're on a victory roll, we're all supposed to jump onboard for the New Kabuki: the pretense that there is going to be financial reform. Which the bankers' lobbyists are already ensuring won't happen, either.
The fate of the Volcker rule, which would ban proprietary trading at U.S. banks, may hinge on the word "shall."
Lobbyists for financial firms are seeking to water down language in Section 619 of the 1,336-page bill proposed last week by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd. Their message: Study the issue first to see if it's needed, then give regulators the option of imposing a ban.
The current language in the draft says federal agencies "shall issue final regulations implementing" the Volcker rule, which was proposed by the Obama administration in January and named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker, now a presidential adviser.
"We believe the regulators should have the discretion to deal with the situation on a company-by-company basis," said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs at the Financial Services Roundtable, a Washington-based trade group. "You can't have a blanket prohibition on proven risk- management techniques."
"Proven risk-management techniques"? Is that what they call unethical profit-making now? How inventive.
The Volcker rule is one of the most contentious aspects of Dodd's bill. It would require federal banking agencies to issue rules banning proprietary trading as well as investment in and sponsorship of hedge funds and private-equity funds at banks, bank holding companies or their subsidiaries.
If implemented, the rule could reduce the 2011 profits of the eight biggest global banks by $11 billion, JPMorgan Chase & Co. estimated in a February report. That forecast, which assumed a 10 percent reduction in trading revenue, excluded the impact on JPMorgan.
The hardest-hit firm would be New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., with a $2.3 billion drop in earnings, according to the report.
The bank has said that betting its own money generates about 10 percent of its annual revenue. The firm made $1.17 billion in 2009 from "principal investments," which include stakes in companies and real estate, according to a company filing. Goldman Sachs Asset Management also oversees private equity and hedge funds for clients.
And the Moral of the Story is: "If stopping unethical trading practices that brought the global economy to the brink of crisis is going to cost the banks 10% of their obscene profits, dump it."
Good advice, I'd say. What the hell.
UPDATE (1pm) Mark points out that not everyone is as thrilled by the Dance of the Seven Veils as CAF. He isn't, for one.
Funny, I don't feel insured.
But I do feel like some large, cancerous corporation is about to entitle itself to part of my wallet.
This is not what anyone outside of the Beltway or Wall Street wanted. The Dow Jones is not crashing this morning, and that's all the proof I need that we just got hosed.
I am not cool with this bill, and I doubt reconciliation (the lube before the insertion) is going to make me feel much better.
He has a list of other progs who likewise haven't been fooled.
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