Today, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) — the insurance industry’s lobbying arm — is hosting a health care policy forum in Washington D.C. This is the first of a series of posts from inside the conference.

AHIP bills its National Policy Forum as “the nation’s premier conference for health industry executives, health policy analysts and experts for in-depth discussions and a diversity of perspectives on the most challenging health care policy issues facing our nation.”

But when ThinkProgress asked National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) President Dan Danner — whose organization opposes Obama’s employer mandate — where he’s willing to compromise with the President to pass comprehensive health care reform, Danner couldn’t answer this “challenging health care policy” question. After several seconds of silence, Danner simply reiterated his support for reform:

I mean, we’re anxious to get a solution. Compromise on what? I think that’s the — one of the challenges, if you’re talking about comprehensive health care, it’s a very complex puzzle, and how you fit all of the pieces together. You know? I don’t think that you can take any part of comprehensive health care in isolation. You have to talk about how’s all this fit together?

Watch it:

While all of the different stakeholders argue have claimed that they’re willing to compromise, few have specified specific points of concession. As Time Magazine reporter Karen Tumulty pointed out, “I think we’re all going to learn over the next few months, how and whether the environment really has changed all that much since 1994.”

Transcript: Read more

Today, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing about President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2010 Health Care Proposals with OMB director Peter Orszag. Below are some highlights.

Orszag on why capitalism and Medicare Advantage overpayments are incomparable:

In a rather heated exchange with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Orszag defended the Obama administration’s proposal to eliminate the subsidies provided to insurers participating in the Medicare Advantage. “Capitalism is not founded on excessively high subsidies,” he said.

ORSZAG: I know many people believe that capitalism is founded on private markets, and it is. But I very firmly believe that capitalism is not founded on excessively high subsidies to private firms. That is what this system delivers right now. For every Medicare beneficiary in Medicare advantage, the federal government pays a thousand dollar more than covering the same beneficiary under fee-for-service.

Listen:

Orszag’s approach may have come off as smug or arrogant, but he’s probably right on the substance. It’s unclear why Medicare would pay about 13 to 17 percent more for beneficiaries enrolled in MA Plans, if they’re not providing better quality care (and just pocketing the subsidy.)

And as Orszag points out, for every dollar the federal government provides to Medicare Advantage in additional benefits, it spends $1.30 in costs. “We’re all paying a $1.30 in order to deliver a dollar to a subset 20% of Medicare beneficiaries. I don’t think that’s competition, I think that’s an unwarranted subsidy,” he said.

Orszag on the unintended consequences of the health care crisis:

Many progressives have made the argument that the economic crisis demands health care reform. Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) asked Orszag about the cost of doing nothing. Orszag checked off the usual talking points but then explained why college students should advocate for health care reform:

ORSZAG: Lots of families are experiencing higher tuition at public universities. Research clearly connects rising tuitions to rising costs of health care in state government budgets, which then means they don’t have room to support public education to the degree they did in the past.

Listen:

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Most progressives — including President Obama — argue that allowing a new public plan to compete with private insurers would increase choice, promote effective competition, bring down health care costs and create incentives for effective performance. (Jacob Hacker has much more here).

Well, a new poll released today by Lake Research found that most Americans agree with this argument. “A whopping 73% of voters want everyone to have a choice of private health insurance or a public health insurance plan while only 15% want everyone to have private insurance.”

Republicans and the insurance companies are part of that stubborn 15%. They argue that competition would force private insurers out of business and lead to a complete government take-over of health care. But as Howard Dean explained in a recent interview with ThinkProgress, giving Americans a choice between a public and a private plan is the only way to achieve real health care reform.

Watch it:

According to the Commonwealth Fund, a public coverage program similar to Medicare would reduce projected health care costs by about $2 trillion over 11 years, and lower premiums by about 20% on average. Within a decade, 105 million people would be enrolled in the public plan, and about 107 million would have private insurance.