Insurance industry's reaction to Obama's healthcare initiative is "Hallelujah!"

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Since Obama's version of healthcare would require all citizens to have health insurance, insurance companies are guaranteed tens of millions of new customers, and government subsidies will pick up the tab. "It's a bonanza," said Robert Laszewski, a health insurance executive for 20 years who now tracks reform legislation as president of the consulting firm Health Policy and Strategy Associates Inc.

According to the LA Times, insurance industry rallied its lobbying and grass-roots resources so successfully in the early stages of the healthcare overhaul deliberations that it is poised to reap a financial windfall. Some insurance company leaders continue to profess concern about the unpredictable course of President Obama's massive healthcare initiative, and they vigorously oppose elements of his agenda. But Laszewski said the industry's reaction to early negotiations boiled down to a single word: "Hallelujah!"

"The insurers are going to do quite well," said Linda Blumberg, a health policy analyst at the nonpartisan Urban Institute, a Washington think tank. "They are going to have this very stable pool, they're going to have people getting subsidies to help them buy coverage and . . . they will be paid the full costs of the benefits that they provide -- plus their administrative costs."

The proposal that most concerns insurers is the "public option" insurance plan, so the industry launched a campaign on Capitol Hill against it, "grounded in a study published by the Lewin Group, a health policy consulting firm that is owned by UnitedHealth Group. The lobbyists contended that a government-run plan, which would have favorable tax and regulatory treatment, would undermine private insurers. Recent support for the public option has declined, and the stock prices of health insurance firms have been rising."