23 Dec Insurance stocks soar as “reform” bill nears passage

Speaking of Glenn Greenwald, the Salon.com columnist has a fact-filled column eviscerating Barack Obama’s claim that Senate Democrats are “standing up to the special interests” opposed to American health care reform.

Greenwald catalogs the explosion in health insurance company stock prices as the severely watered-down reform bill edges toward passage. By way of illustration, he notes that Susan Bayh, wife of Indiana Democratic Senator Evan Bayh and board member of the Indianapolis-based insurance giant WellPoint, has seen the value of her stock in the company rise between $125,000 and $250,000 since her husband helped defeat the bill’s already lame public option.

Although Greenwald considers the bill, which will force Americans to pay private insurance premiums under penalty of income tax penalties, a massive public subsidy of the insurance industry, he supports its passage as a lesser evil than the current health care void. But he is troubled by the vilification of liberals who oppose the bill by the Obama administration and its friends in the media and the blogosphere.  Well worth a read.