WASHINGTON — Health insurers flirted with Democrats, supported them with money and got what they wanted: a federal mandate that most Americans carry health care coverage. Now, they’re backing Republicans, hoping a GOP Congress will mean friendlier regulations.
They may get more than they’re wishing for.
The so-called individual mandate has provoked Tea Party conservatives, who see it as an example of big-government interference in personal decisions. Now, Republican candidates are running on platforms that include repealing the broader health care law. And attorneys general from some 20 states — including Colorado — are challenging the mandate as unconstitutional.
“If you ended up repealing that one provision, the whole thing blows up,” said Bill Hoag land, the top lobbyist for Cigna Corp. “It doesn’t work. The cost would explode.”
Still, Cigna, which early last year had been funneling money to Democrats from its political action committee, has shifted from a 50-50 split between the parties to around 70-30 in favor of Republican candidates.
Likewise, about $6 of $10 that Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s PAC doled out from February through June 2009 went to Democrats. By last month, the ratio had shifted — Democrats got only about 35 percent of the insurer’s PAC money.
In all, from January through August of 2009, the health insurance industry donated $2.15 million to Democrats and $1.7 million to Republicans, according to monthly figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Since September of 2009, the industry has donated $2.4 million to Democrats and nearly $3.3 million to Republicans.
The GOP advantage has grown even as Republican candidates call for outright repeal of the health care law.
“This is really an incredible irony,” said Robert Laszew ski, an insurance executive turned consultant. “The insurance industry could be fighting with its traditional ally, the Republicans, not to cripple the bill, not to put a bomb inside the thing.”
Though the insurers won the insurance mandate they wanted from President Barack Obama and the Democrats, they opposed the overall bill and now say they want to be sure the regulations they face aren’t onerous. A Republican-controlled Congress might accomplish that by pressuring the Health and Human Services Department through its control of the department’s budget or by subjecting regulators to congressional hearings.
A central worry for insurers is a planned requirement that companies spend a minimum 80 percent of premiums on medical care or rebate the difference to policyholders. They also want a say in defining what would be considered “excessive” premium increases that could expose an insurance company to sanctions.
