Consumer Watchdog – Keeping Politicians Honest - Blog

The latest round of exhorbitant rate increases nationally has helped more and more people recognize what Consumer Watchdog has been arguing for the last year: Congress cannot require all Americans to purchase insurance from the for-profit insurance industry without real oversight of what they charge ...

Consumer Watchdog's calls for tough and open health insurance rate regulation are being echoed and amplified. The latest instance is in Connecticut, the home state of insurance companies, where Attorney General Earl Blumenthal recently proposed major reforms that would require the state to review and reject, modify or allow a rate change before it goes into effect. No more shrugging and letting it happen without a public review.

When the US Supreme Court decided to allow corporations to spend money directly on campaign advertising, they opened the floodgates to excessive spending by companies to change the outcome of elections. The long-term solution is a...

Sarah Palin, the Cruella DeVille of anti-government-health care, caught everyone's attention with the story of her family hopping the border from Skagway, Alaska, into the Yukon Territory for Canadian government health care when Palin was a child. Canadian newspapers noted cattily that Palin previously described going to Juneau, Alaska, for the same treatment for her brother's burned foot. Whatever. I wanted to know whether other Alaskans went to Canada for medical care--and still do.

The President called for an up or down vote on health care reform, but I can say from my own experience this week working with Blue Cross patients, who are part of Consumer Watchdog’s lawsuit against he company, that the public has already cast its vote. 

President Obama's "get it done" speech on health reform Wednesday may have been a day late, but I hope it's not a dollar short, as the old saying goes. At least he has one tremendous ally in his call for action by Congress: Anthem Blue Cross, and the continuing outrage at its huge rate increases.

President Lyndon Johnson faced hard choices in 1964: Preserve Democrats' majority in Congress, perhaps for decades. Or ram through landmark civil rights legislation proposed by the slain John F. Kennedy, plus Medicare health coverage for seniors--and lose the whole bloc of so-called Southern Democrats, Strom Thurmond among them.Substitute Blue Dog Democrats for Southern Democrats, and you'd be close to what Congress and President Obama face over a much easier choice--a moderate health reform bill that bears no relation to a "government takeover."

I just got off the phone with Consumer Watchdog Boardmember Kathy Olsen, who is in Washington, D.C. today along with her family, and medical malpractice victims and/or their families from four other states, for meetings at the White House with the Obama Administration.

The Huffington Post just reported that a top Treasury Department official, whose job was to work with the House Financial Services Committee in drafting financial reform legislation, just took a job with a firm that lobbies Congress on behalf of big banks.