It is important to remember as you read what follows that the Democrat healthcare "Reform" bill is based on the model Massachusetts adopted in '06. It has the same weaknesses and flaws. That makes it a viable predictor of our future as a nation with regard to health insurance except for one little, teensy weensy difference: the Massachusetts law included an insurance commissioner. The national plan does NOT.

As expected, a number of health insurance companies in Massachuetts recently announced double-digit premium hikes. State Insurance Commissioner James Murphy, after studying the numbers, told the insurance companies to take a hike and rejected the proposed raises.In response, the insurance companies have filed suit claiming that Murphy doesn't have the power to do what he just did even though the statute specifically says he does.

A half-dozen health insurers yesterday filed a lawsuit against the state seeking to reverse last week's decision by the insurance commissioner to block double-digit premium increases - a ruling they say could leave them with hundreds of millions in losses this year.

The proposed rate hikes would have taken effect April 1 for plans covering thousands of small businesses and individuals. Insurers wanted to raise base rates an average of 8 percent to 32 percent; tacked on to that are often additional costs calculated according to factors such as the size and age of the workforce.

Also as expected, the (mostly) non-profit insurers are blaming doctors and hospitals for the startling raise, a trick they picked up from their for-profits sibs.

"What the commissioner did, we think, is going to create tremendous disruption in the marketplace,'' said Dean Richlin, a partner at Boston law firm Foley Hoag who represents insurers.

Health insurance leaders are also contending the health premium rate rejections are a distraction from what they see as the real problem: steadily rising medical costs, particularly from health care providers and hospital groups that use their market clout to negotiate long-term contracts on favorable terms with the insurance carriers.

"We're particularly distressed that this does nothing to contain the underlying hospital costs and doctor costs and drug costs,'' said James Roosevelt Jr., the chief executive of Tufts Health Plan.

Yes, I'm sure they are. Meanwhile, Barbara Anthony, undersecretary of the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, which oversees insurance regulators, was unimpressed by the insurance companies' arguments.

Anthony said the insurers' contentions were "specious,'' and reflected how out of touch the industry is with the pressures ordinary citizens and businessmen face as Massachusetts emerges from recession.

"This is an outrageous response from an industry that claimed to be concerned about alleviating these escalating health care costs,'' Anthony said. "I think it's clear that the insurance companies are in love with the status quo where they get to continue to charge double-digit premium increases on small businesses and families.''

There's a lot going on here and without getting into the checkered history of health insurance in Mass, which in a number of ways mirrors the checkered history of health insurance corpo's in the rest of the nation, it's still fair to say that this is precisely the nature of the fight we can expect to have over the next few years as insurance companies use "rising medical costs" and the supposed greed of doctors to raise their already stratospheric rates into the realms of Outer Space.

Except, of course, that we won't be having a fight because there is NOTHING in the Democrat bill to prevent double-digit premium hikes every other week if that's what the insurance companies want to do. There is NO national insurance commissioner, NO ONE in govt nationally who has to approve such hikes, and NO countervailing pressure of any kind from ANY govt agency.

Yessir, that bill is "historic" alright. Welcome to the Future.