More intimidation tactics by Obama Administration against opponents in health care debate

From the NY Times:

President Obama mounted a frontal assault on the insurance industry on Saturday, accusing it of airing “deceptive and dishonest ads” to derail his health care legislation and threatening to strip the industry of its longstanding exemption from federal anti-trust laws.

In unusually harsh terms, Mr. Obama cast insurance companies as obstacles to change interested only in preserving their own “profits and bonuses” and willing to “bend the truth or break it” to stop his drive to remake the nation’s health care system. The president used his weekly radio and Internet address to push back against industry assertions that legislation will drive up premiums.

“It’s smoke and mirrors,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s bogus. And it’s all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, ‘Take one of these, and call us in a decade.’ Well, not this time.”

Rather than trying to curb costs and help patients, he said the industry is busy “figuring out how to avoid covering people. And they’re earning these profits and bonuses while enjoying a privileged exemption from our anti-trust laws, a matter that Congress is rightfully reviewing.”

Mr. Obama’s sharp attack comes as the health care debate moves out of congressional committees to the wider stage of floor debates in the Senate and House. While he has criticized insurers before, his bare-knuckled language on Saturday reflected a more open break with the industry and recognition that his efforts to bring it into some sort of consensus had failed.

The White House is concerned that the insurance industry can undermine public support for changing the health care system much as it did in dooming President Bill Clinton’s overhaul efforts in the 1990s. A new industry study is fueling broader criticism that the plans advanced by Democrats will cost too much, raise consumer expenses and insert government more deeply into the health care sector. . . . .

The president complained bitterly about the insurers’ attack on the legislation. “The insurance industry is rolling out the big guns and breaking open their massive war chest to marshal their forces for one last fight to save the status quo,” he said. “They’re filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads. They’re flooding Capitol Hill with lobbyists and campaign contributions. And they’re funding studies designed to mislead the American people.”

He went on to attack other critics he described as tools of the industry. “Of course, like clockwork, we’ve seen folks on cable television who know better, waving these industry-funded studies in the air,” he said. “We’ve seen industry insiders — and their apologists — citing these studies as proof of claims that just aren’t true.” . . . .

Obama Targets Insurance Industry, Attacks the Chamber of Commerce