Leadership lessons for difficult times: the health care debate puts the industry back into a whipping-boy role.

Insurance companies are the perennial whipping boy for any two-bit demagogue seeking to gain political advantage on social issues. If one had just listened to the politicians, it would have been easy to believe that the insurance companies had caused Hurricane Katrina, because homeowners policies contained flood exclusions. Have a hot issue and need a bogeyman to distract attention? Just figure out a way to blame the insurance companies.

However, the insurance industry must accept some responsibility for its plight as a public relations pin cushion. Insurance companies can relate to Richard Nixon when, in his 1977 interview with David Frost, he said, I gave my enemies a sword and they stuck it in me." Too many times the self-serving positions taken by insurance companies have given their enemies a sword to stick in them.

It seems that the insurance companies have consistently come down on the wrong side of major social reform. Fearing they would be put out of business, the insurance industry fought hard against adoption of the Social Security system. Worried about loss of future pension business, the industry lobbied hard to prevent the passage of the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act. (The irony is that both of these initiatives actually stimulated growth in the insurance industry.) Concerned over potential lost sales, the insurance industry was the leading opponent of President George W. Bush's effort to repeal estate taxes.

Today, the insurance industry has come down on the wrong side of the health care debate. Seeming to be more concerned with profits than with what is right, the insurance industry is in the forefront of the battle to prevent recognition of basic health care as a right for all Americans. And, even worse, the industry seems to be condoning the despicable tactics of fear, disinformation and demagoguery to protect the status quo.

It is embarrassing and sad to see the insurance industry treat a serious issue in such a selfish and cavalier fashion. In the meantime, nearly 50 million Americans have no health care services at all and scores of millions more are provided only inferior coverage.

The insurance industry is only sharpening the sword for its enemies when it clings to the position that the quantity and quality of health care should be determined by how much money an individual has to pay an insurance company. The ultimate reality of this position is that the insurance industry could find itself excluded from the solution.

There is a lesson that the insurance industry would do well to learn: If you are being run out of town, get in front of the crowd and make it look like a parade.

Rather than fighting what is right, the insurance industry should use its clout, knowledge and experience to lead the way in developing the best solution to providing all Americans with basic health care.

In doing so, the insurance industry would not only begin to change its "ogre image" in the eye of the consumer, but also carve out a productive and profitable role in the effort.

Robert W. MacDonald, a Best's Review columnist, is a principal of CTW Consulting in Minneapolis. He can be reached at bobmac@ bobmaconbusiness.com.