The $150 billion dollar committment the US government has made to insurance giant American General Health, as well as its 80 percent stake in the company, may present a conflict of interest when it comes to Obama’s proposed health care reforms. While Obama has tried to spread the impact of his proposals around, instead of placing all of the weight on the health insurance companies, there will still be many changes which would impact the industry. Obama’s insistence that companies no longer cherry pick healthy members and deny those with potentially expensive conditions would be prohibitive to insurance companies being profitable. Which will carry more weight in the coming months, Obama’s committment to improving health care for our nation’s citizens, or the government’s investment in a health insurance giant who would stand to lose if such reforms were made?

1. Dan Says:
   February 25th, 2009 at 1:10 pm

   I think Obama will stand behind his beliefs, even if it isn’t in the best interest of the insurance company.

2. Bud L Says:
   February 25th, 2009 at 1:46 pm

   One would be tempted to say that losses (even up to $180 B) for a single company for “the good our nation’s citizens” overwhelmingly takes precedence. Remember that is ostensively why the $’s were infused into AIG in the first place. However, AIG is much more than a health insurer and a new law/program resulting in losses to that portion of its business should only be a fraction of the taxpayer’s dollars. But, if it will do this to AIG it will have the same effect on all other health insurers. We might ask the question if that is something in which we find a conflict of interest.

   As I understand it, the government’s health insurance plan will offer health insurance products that will compete with private companies so as to get those currently uninsured (I’m not sure about uninsurable by current standards as the devil is surely in the details) insured. What does insured mean. If it is a “Cover Florida” approach I suspect many people will keep their private insurance. But many others will probably “buy” into the government product. Who can really proffer a guess until we see the details? Who knows? Maybe the current health insurance industry as we know it will be resigned to only being third-party administrators of government products with their current employees on the government payroll. I mean why create a whole new bureaucracy

3. Kirsten Says:
   February 25th, 2009 at 2:18 pm

   The money given to AIG has NOTHING to do with healthcare. Seriously, these topics are not even related.