It would seem that shooting oneself in the foot can become an addiction that is dangerous, like sniffing glue or reading Wall Street Journal editorials. Like any addiction it takes more and more of the substance or action to get the same buzz.
This explains why the health insurance business no longer seems to be content with bullets emanating from mere handguns to perform the seemingly ever more necessary self-inflictions. Years of shooting itself in the foot with hand-helds have worn off the allure of such minor pings.
Thus it is that we saw recently the emergence of a truly magnificent weapon–a real blunderbuss, if you will–in the industry's war against its own nether extremities.
Obviously I am talking about Anthem Blue Cross of California's exquisitely timed volley in the form of premium increases of up to 39% for individual policyholders in the Golden State. A blast to take off at least three toes, if I ever saw one.
I don't like using the word "clueless" inadvisably, but any other explanation leaves me hard pressed to understand how the company could not foresee that this particular move at this particular time would be like red meat thrown to starving lions (that is, Democrats after Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts).
Did not a single executive at Anthem and its parent, Wellpoint, have a clue that in our soundbite era no one would pay attention to how actuarially justified these types of increases might be?
(Excuse me, I was mistaken in saying no one would pay attention since America's Health Insurance Plans was interested and decried the 'vilification' when the inevitable attacks were made.)
Even the most well-buttressed arguments and justifications in the world would have had a tough time cutting through the noise that Anthem itself created.
As I wrote in my blog entry, Tone Deaf, at www.lifeandhealtheditor.com, "After experiencing a year of hearing insurers railed at for unrestrained increases in premiums that are crushing businesses and consumers, how on earth do you go ahead and up the ante for some customers by 39%?"
