Health Insurance Executive Says His Company Favors a Federal Requirement to Purchase Health Insurance

Peter Suderman | January 14, 2011

A top executive with the state’s largest health insurer on Thursday defended requiring most Americans to have health coverage by 2014.

“Our position is that we favor a mandate,” said Matt All, vice president and chief legal counsel at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas.

...Dropping the so-called individual mandate from the federal health reform law, he said, would “create a dangerous set of conditions,” noting that without the requirement, large numbers of people would be free to put off buying health insurance until they were sick.

Such an arrangement, he said, would wreak havoc in the insurance industry.

Since the passage of the PPACA, health insurers have lobbied for more permissive regulations. But at the same time, they’ve continued to lobby for the mandate, which is expected to bring them millions of new customers, most of whom will be subsidized. At this point, it seems that a number of investors in the industry are looking at the law as a new business opportunity. When the federal government decides to require the purchase of your industry’s product and subsidize millions of new “customers” to do so, it’s clearly some kind of opportunity. But I’m not sure I’d call it a business.

Reason needs your support. Please donate today!

Try Reason's award-winning print edition today! Your first issue is FREE if you are not completely satisfied.

Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment or disable your ability to comment for any reason at any time.

|1.14.11 @ 2:37PM|#

I am shocked.....not.

|1.14.11 @ 2:39PM|#

Hey look, once again the supposed anti-corporate-interest Dems have given a huge sop to huge corporations! Color me astonished. How does that feel, TEAM BLUE schmucks? How's that shit in your mouth taste? How does sucking it up once again for the team feel?

The one good thing in all this is seeing the TEAM BLUE morons get shafted by their leaders again. It's delicious.

|1.14.11 @ 2:47PM|#

You seem to be a very angry little man.

|1.14.11 @ 2:49PM|#

You seem to be a very obsessed little passive aggressive pussy; and unlike your observation, mine is obviously correct.

LL Lurkerson Jr|1.14.11 @ 3:03PM|#

I haven't been here in weeks, and you're still being stalked by Rectal?!

I had kinda hoped he had been arrested outside an AZ Safeway store last week.

Hugh Akston|1.14.11 @ 3:14PM|#

It's not Rectal. You can tell because there's no link to rectal's blog. This is just Epi's hater from the AZ shooter thread.

|1.14.11 @ 3:36PM|#

The thread? There's been like fifty.

Hugh Akston|1.14.11 @ 4:39PM|#

The epic thread.

|1.14.11 @ 3:04PM|#

In all fairness, I think the Dems who hate corporations the most are also likely to oppose Obamacare on the grounds that it's not government-run, single payer.

|1.14.11 @ 3:14PM|#

The most prevalent point of view I'm come across is disappointment in Obama for not fighting harder against the evil Republican and corporate interests. (Until about a week ago, when it stopped being OK to use phrases like "fight harder", until it does become OK again.) Always followed by saying that it's still important to stand behind Obama and insistence that PPACA should never be called "Obamacare".

J|1.14.11 @ 3:37PM|#

Dems don't hate corporations, they just hate corporations they don't control.

.|1.14.11 @ 4:32PM|#

Amakudari|1.15.11 @ 4:21AM|#

If they truly believed that they'd support PPACA repeal. Anything else is tacit approval of the horse-trading necessary to pass the bill.

|1.14.11 @ 4:35PM|#

Another risible intervention by Episuck. The corporatist hack is right: removing the mandate would stress private insurance to the breaking point. ObamaCare is a Republican plan, of the type championed by such fiscal hawks as Romney in MA. It is the corporate-welfare version of reform, but no where near as deranged as the wars and the defense-welfare, which helps no one. Too bad we never hear about those REAL issues from GOP hacks like you.

JoshINHB|1.14.11 @ 11:52PM|#

ObamaCare is a Republican plan

Keep repeating it like a mantra

ObamaCare is a Republican plan
ObamaCare is a Republican plan
ObamaCare is a Republican plan

Believe it yet?
No :(

Keep chanting until you do.

Those insurance companies are doing God's work!

Hugh Akston|1.14.11 @ 2:56PM|#

Wait, aren't they the ones to blame for insurance being unaffordable in the first place?

Joe M|1.14.11 @ 3:15PM|#

Um, yes, well, see, thing is...

Roads?

|1.14.11 @ 3:17PM|#

Making home loans readily available to people who have shaky income and no down payment is promoting equality opportunity of home ownership except when it's predatory lending.

Kevin|1.14.11 @ 2:54PM|#

A true classic from Robocop-

I'll buy that for a dollar.

|1.14.11 @ 4:04PM|#

I want a 6000SUX!

|1.14.11 @ 2:55PM|#

I'm not quite sure what the point in posting this is.

Hugh Akston|1.14.11 @ 3:09PM|#

Then why did you post it?

This, that, whatever.

|1.14.11 @ 3:30PM|#

I think it's kinda like lobster girl. 'never really need a reason...

|1.14.11 @ 3:10PM|#

You don't have to buy their product to comply with the mandate, you just have to write a Summary Plan Document saying you'll pretend to pay any claims you file with yourself. As annoying as this is, it is not nearly as annoying as filing an application or claim with a carrier.

Even if ther were a mandate, customers would be sure to render the carriers insolvent with claims in retailiation. BCBS just moved up on the target list.

However, lets hope for the best. No new insurance customers.

DougJarvus Green-Ellis|1.14.11 @ 3:31PM|#

When are you shills going to start criticizing corporate abuses of power?

|1.14.11 @ 3:40PM|#

Pete, using "PPACA" only identifies you (rightly or not) as a Dem-symp Beltway insider.

Its ObamaCare, OK? He broke it, he bought it, it has his stink all over it.

|1.16.11 @ 9:12AM|#

That's where I stopped reading.

|1.14.11 @ 3:47PM|#

ObalosiCare.

|1.14.11 @ 4:16PM|#

I saw a show about Blue Cross of California where they said that the company was lobbying to change prescription drugs to over the counter. They talked about how this would save the company money.

Nothing like having your insurance premiums spent to have the government reduce your benefits.

Business is evil, when it colludes with government.

|1.15.11 @ 12:52AM|#

"When the federal government decides to require the purchase of your industry’s product and subsidize millions of new “customers” to do so, it’s clearly some kind of opportunity. But I’m not sure I’d call it a business."

Depends. Is La Cosa Nostra a business?

The Deliverator|1.15.11 @ 5:46PM|#

Well, they can bring your pizza faster than anyone else.

Uncle Enzo guarantees it.

Reason.com