“Is this the end for Harry and Louise?” said Paul Krugman in The New York Times. The fictional TV ad couple, created by the health-insurance industry, helped sink President Clinton’s health-care plan in 1993. Now, the “medical-industrial complex” is playing nice with President Obama, offering to trim costs and endorsing many of his health economics ideas. This might be a “Trojan horse” offer, but it’s still “tremendously good news.”
Slowing cost hikes by $2 trillion over 10 years sounds good, said Tom Linkmark in Seeking Alpha, but the proposals to do so are vague, and each of the interest groups—insurers, hospitals, drugmakers, doctors—has competing goals. Since they can’t beat Obama with a “frontal assault,” as with their “Hillary Care” win, they’re probably trying to “bend” the upcoming changes to their favor.
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