Kay Hagan, the junior U.S. senator from North Carolina, is represented in a mailing from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of N.C. with a flattering color photograph. And for the convenience of recipients, a postage-paid card is included to mail to Hagan.
Just a friendly hello? Not hardly. BCBS wants folks to try to intimidate Hagan, a Democrat, into voting against health care reform, specifically the government-sponsored insurance plan that has reappeared in the Senate. Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid said the so-called "public option" (with a proviso allowing states to opt out) will be part of reform legislation.
That's important, because the idea of having a government plan that would compete with private insurers such as BCBS appears to have support in the House. If it gets through the Senate, BCBS and other health insurers would have a new competitor that might force rates down for everyone.
The public option appeared dead for a while, but it's clear there's been some blowback against the well-organized opposition to reform that appeared some months ago. Senators must have taken note of the public pulse.
And speaking of the public pulse, it was beating more rapidly than normal for BCBS customers before the latest mailing, with notification that the company would be raising rates by an average of 11 percent next year. Hmmm...those slick anti-public option letters must be expensive. Those customers apparently aren't as naïve as BCBS thinks they are: After the mailing, many called Hagan's office to support a public option, and others have marked through the canned anti-option message on BCBS' cards and mailed the cards anyway.
BCBS isn't worried, by the way, about North Carolina's other senator, Republican Richard Burr. He's a big proponent of free-market solutions to health care reform, so he's not likely to strain their leash. He'll reliably vote against Democratic reform plans, even though they would address problems experienced by many Americans who have been denied coverage or priced out of it, or had a specific treatment rejected by long-distance insurance company representatives.
To read the complete editorial, visit The (Raleigh) News & Observer.