Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Private health-insurance companies, to be raising premiums by 39%? Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, gave the breaking news that WellPoint, which owns the Anthem Blue Cross of California, was rich. It made $2.7 billion in the last quarter of 2009, which could not, she asserted, “justify massive increases,” and she announced a hearing. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared it was “greedy insurance companies that care more about profits than people.” Representative Henry Waxman announced his own additional Federal investigation. President Obama expanded. It’s a “portrait of the future if we don’t do something now.” (Or is it a portrait of the future if they pass ObamaCare?) The President’s proposal, revealed a few days later, would add a new bureaucracy to his administration, the Health Insurance Rate Agency (HIRE), to wrestle with corporate greed and stifle premiums. This was a welcome opportunity to control the insurance industry. “The WellPoint Mugg...