"Unlike last time around, our industry has made a commitment to come to the table with workable solutions," Zirkelbach said. "We're taking a dramatically different approach to reform than we did 15 years ago. Back then, we opposed reform. Now we support it."
I feel better already.
But when I asked Zirkelbach about the $2 trillion in cost reductions that the healthcare industry says it can come up with over 10 years, he said the details were still being hammered out.
As for Obama's proposal for a public plan to compete with private ones and keep costs down, Zirkelbach said, "We have significant concerns about that, absolutely."
And he wasn't very committed to the insurers' recent claim that they'll stop denying coverage to sick people or those with preexisting conditions. Zirkelbach said this would be contingent on lawmakers approving a national mandate for health insurance -- in other words, a requirement that everyone has to buy the industry's products.
Are those changes still possible without a mandate?
"Probably not," Zirkelbach replied.
Maybe insurers and lawmakers need to be reminded of what's really at stake here. This isn't just about what's politically feasible or financially palatable.
It's about people like Atascadero residents Monica and John Rosecrans, both 57. They lost their health insurance in 2007 when John was fired from his job renting recreational vehicles to vacationers.
First the couple turned to COBRA, the government program that provides coverage for a limited time to people who lose employer-based health benefits. It cost them about $800 a month. Then the Rosecranses shopped around for policies in the individual insurance market. Monica now pays $600 a month for coverage with Anthem Blue Cross. John pays $700 a month.
"It's wiped out all our savings," Monica told me. "But we're at an age where if anything happened to us, we'd be paying far more.
"We can't afford health insurance," she said. "But we can't afford not to have it."
The same goes for the rest of us. That's what Obama and members of Congress need to remember as healthcare executives start haggling over terms -- or if, yet again, they get up and leave the table.
This isn't about their needs. It's about ours.
--
David Lazarus' column runs Wednesdays and Sundays.
Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.
--
latimes.com/lazarus/trust
Poll
Do you trust insurers to help reform the healthcare system?
