The president of AHIP (the American Health Insurance Plans) issued a statement today blaming everyone else for the high cost of health care and declaring the need for comprehensive health reform.  Among other things, the statement reiterates the premium death spiral (i.e., Health insurance premiums are increasing in the individual market because of soaring medical costs and because younger and healthier people are dropping their coverage due to the economy) and bemoans the health plans relatively small profit margins (relative to other segments of the market).

The first problem is that the profit margin numbers are pretty meaningless, because they are not adjusted for risk.  Given the ability to raise prices every year to cover actuarial changes, its far from clear that this margin is low.  Second, this is the group that brought us "Harry and Louise" who helped sink the Clinton reform efforts and doubtless prevented the Senate from adopting an entirely reasonable plan to drop the age for Medicare eligiblity to 55.

AHIP has a seat at the table simply because it can spend enormous sums on lobbying.  The notion that the Healthplans are somehow powerless victims is a bit hard to take.