What is the 'centrist' number of claims denied?
  --I love newspapers. I still love the newspapers in this country, even after the harm they have done to themselves--going deeply into debt to gobble up other papers, etc. I love to wade through (most of) the pages of a big daily. But as I have written before, we have a problem when the language of what should be reportage is in fact disguised political rhetoric.

That word 'centrist' is a premier example. Reporters missing the real story in the health care debate--that we may have a chance to pull the multi-trillion insurance industry into the broader economy in a more rational way--are fond of using the words 'centrist' and 'moderate' to characterize Democrats who are actually last-ditch holdouts to protect the insurance industry from accountability to their customers. (There's also Joe Lieberman.)

This is, or should be, an easy reality check, for anyone who has thought about bad-faith practices by carriers:

 - What is the 'centrist' number of claims to be denied when policyholders fall ill or have an accident requiring medical care?

 - What is the centrist number of pre-existing conditions for which coverage should be denied? If Blanche Lincoln or Mary Landrieu favors including domestic violence as a pre-existing condition, is that 'moderate'?

 - What is the centrist amount by which your premiums should go up, after you submit a claim?

 - What is the centrist number of policies that should be cancelled when the policyholder submits a claim?

 - Come to think of it, what is the moderate amount by which insurance premiums should rise, every year? Every decade? In each state? In the nation?

 - What is the centrist number of months to elapse, between when the policyholder submits a claim and the claim is paid?

 - What is the 'centrist' number of policyholders who must file a lawsuit to get their carriers to abide by their policies?

And last but not least, what is the moderate or centrist amount of money that the biggest insurance companies should be spending on lobbying, on executive compensation and perks, and on campaign or political contributions?

Right now we're in an interesting situation: We have a public discussion of health care that is considerably better, for the most part, among ordinary people than in some of the biggest media outlets.

Side note: Related to this complacent notion of bad-faith protectors as centrists or somehow moderate, far too often there is a perception in the media that merely extending the number of people who buy insurance (or are forced to buy it) is positive. The Massachusetts program implemented by Mitt Romney, for example, has been called 'successful'--solely because more people in Massachusetts now have insurance policies, subsidized by the taxpayers in that state. This bland assumption of success ignores the following criteria:

1. It disregards the cost to the taxpayers, whose money is going to the insurance industry.

2. It disregards the fact that premiums in Massachusetts are STILL RISING, even with thousands of new customers for the carriers, subsidized as mentioned by the taxpayers.

3. It omits any statistical evidence that more people in Massachusetts are getting actual health care, or getting better care, or getting care earlier.

4. It omits any methodical scrutiny of people with pre-existing conditions, of poor people, and of the unemployed and the underemployed.

For good and sufficient reason, the Mitt Romney-Hillary Clinton proposals to expand the insurance industry's coverage base--without any guarantee or safeguard of lower premiums, lower cost to the taxpayers, more access to actual health care, and indeed more actual coverage--were soundly rejected by Democrats in the 2008 primaries.

Once again:  What we need is health care for all.

Health insurance for all is not an end in itself.