Obama freezes and polarizes, as Alinsky taught

Rule 13, Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals:

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

Reuters

Obama also offered his toughest criticism yet of a health insurance industry that he said placed profits ahead of patients. "Every year, they raise premiums higher and higher," Obama said "They will keep doing this for as long as they can get away with it."

Turning up the heat, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to top companies such as Aetna Inc and Wellpoint Inc asking them to justify rate increases by making public information about costs, enrollment changes and other details.

"It's time for these insurance company CEOs to do their part to make the system more transparent for the American people," Sebelius said. "If insurance companies are going to raise rates, the least they can do is tell us why."

The Obama administration has targeted health insurers in its final push for an overhaul designed to rein in costs, regulate insurers and expand coverage to tens of millions of Americans.

Obama said failure to pass a healthcare overhaul this year would leave intact a broken $2.5 trillion healthcare system that is ravaged by greedy health insurers.

Business Week: health insurers have already won

"As the health reform fight shifts this month from a vacationing Washington to congressional districts and local airwaves around the country, much more of the battle than most people realize is already over. The likely victors are insurance giants such as UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Aetna (AET), and WellPoint (WLP). The carriers have succeeded in redefining the terms of the reform debate to such a degree that no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall, the insurance industry will emerge more profitable. Health reform could come with a $1 trillion price tag over the next decade, and it may complicate matters for some large employers. But insurance CEOs ought to be smiling.

Executives from UnitedHealth certainly showed no signs of worry on the mid-July day that Senate Democrats proposed to help pay for reform with a new tax on the insurance industry. Instead, UnitedHealth parked a shiny 18-wheeler outfitted with high-tech medical gear near the Capitol and invited members of Congress aboard. Inside the mobile diagnostic center, which enables doctors to examine distant patients via satellite television, Representative Jim Matheson didn't disguise his wonderment. "Fascinating, fascinating," said the Democrat from Utah. "Amazing."

Impressing fiscally conservative Democrats like Matheson, a leader of the House of Representatives' Blue Dog Coalition, is at the heart of UnitedHealth's strategy. It boils down to ensuring that whatever overhaul Congress passes this year will help rather than hurt huge insurance companies."