I’m sure the White House is thrilled to have AHIP’s health insurers as a whipping boy in their efforts to gather support for President Obama’s health insurance reform bill. After all, an industy full of despised monopolists seeking exorbitant rate increases and whose business model depends on denying health coverage to unsuspecting Americans is just the villain remedy a good doctor would prescribe.

But for the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone thinks there’s a genuine dispute between the White House and AHIP.

A year ago, the White House made a deal with the insurers, and as far as I can tell, the deal is still in effect. Under that deal, AHIP agreed to support the thrust of insurance reforms — to end denials based on prior conditions and modestly restrict their discretion in charging higher premiums for some than for others. The White House agreed not to challenge the basic structure of private insurance via wholesale replacement with a public system. Both sides have, so far, kept their respective promises.

So what are they fighting about? Here are the key principles they agree on:

1. There will be exchanges in which anyone not otherwise covered at work can purchase more or less standardized insurance on a guaranteed issue basis.

2. There will be mandates, with some exceptions, to require individuals and small businesses to purchase insurance on these exchanges or contribute to the costs if they do not.

3. The mandates should be enforced by penalties on individuals and businesses that do not otherwise provide coverage at work.

4. The federal government will, via billions in subsidies, help those subject to the mandates pay the private insurers’ premiums.

5. In the exchanges, there will be no significant public insurance competition for the private insurance industry.

6. There will be no serious effort to regulate rates at the federal level, and there may be some preemption of conflicting state regulation. The main focus of the federal regulation will be to standardize coverage and set other standards that will minimize needless competition and provide certainty to the insurers.

7. The federal government will make efforts to rein in escalating provider costs, to prevent the insurers from being squeezed between provider market power and consumer protests.

Those are the core principles, the basic framework of Obama’s proposal, and I can’t see any item on which the parties disagree.

AHIP is, of course, furious that the White House is picking on them. But they’re probably not that angry, because whatever support the President gets for his bill, that’s probably fine with the insurers. AHIP doesn’t want to kill the bill that saves them.

Mandates not strong enough? The President’s bill strengthens them. Provider costs a part of the problem? The White House agrees. A Public Option unacceptable? Gosh, it just doesn’t have Rockefeller’s vote.

And if you look at what AHIP is saying in its protest ads, the basic message is: the deal is still on, and we want this bill to pass. Just stop blaming us because we’re just a small slice of the problem.

Whatever fight they’re having is a distraction, and for the White House, a convenient ruse.

More:
TPM, Sebelius vs Ignagni at AHIP reports on the faux fight