As consumers get bilked so that health insurers can rake in profits to pay their shareholders and executives billions in combined stock value each year, one industry-backed congressional Democrat is inserting himself into the spotlight to proudly defend Big Insurance.

On Capitol Hill last week, the senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee used a high-profile hearing with health insurance CEOs from UnitedHealth Group, Cigna, Elevance Health, and Ascension to console executives, absolving them of blame for anything happening in health care right now.

A Politico story (headlined “In a twist, Republicans are demonizing insurers while Democrats defend them”) recounted the spectacle created by longtime representative Frank Pallone Jr (D-NJ).

“This is not your fault — this is the Republicans’ fault,” Pallone told the CEOs during last week’s hearing. “Don’t let them drag you in here and blame you for what’s going on.”

Pallone has raked in hundreds of thousands in campaign cash from the insurance sector in his nearly forty years as a congressman.

The last election cycle alone, Pallone was among the top five House recipients of donations from the health services and health maintenance organizations (HMOs) insurance industry, and together his campaign and leadership committee accepted tens of thousands in PAC donations from the country’s largest health conglomerates, including $44,000 from Blue Cross Blue Shield, $20,000 from CVS Health, $15,000 from Cigna, $15,000 from Humana, and $17,500 from UnitedHealth Group.

That means Pallone was speaking directly to some of his donors when he exonerated them for America’s health care woes.

In a Ways and Means hearing on affordability that the CEOs testified at later Thursday, chair Jason Smith (R-MO) fired back at Pallone.

“Instead of demanding answers, a senior Democrat reassured our CEO witnesses this morning, saying, ‘It’s not your fault,’” he said. “Maybe because Democrats know it’s their fault. Because after fifteen years of a Democratic-created health system under Obamacare, prices have only gone up, not down.”

Obviously, Republicans are a huge part of the problem here; they are the ones blocking an extension of subsidies, which is further jacking up premiums. But Democrats allowing themselves to be depicted as defenders of the insurance industry is just an incredible commentary on how out of touch — or owned — their party’s leaders are.

And yet, it’s not just the party’s current leaders — it’s also potentially the next generation of leaders too. On the campaign trail last Thursday, Michigan Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed was attacked by his Democratic rival for championing Medicare for All and trying to reduce private insurance corporations’ obstructive hold on patients’ access to their health care providers.

“The Medicare for All legislation that you’ve championed completely eliminates private health insurance as it exists today,” tweeted Michigan state lawmaker and Democratic Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow.

Never mind that crushing health insurance price hikes have led a majority of Americans to tell pollsters they support Medicare for All, even if it would mean replacing their existing private health insurance. The pile-on was added to online by Democratic consultant Lis Smith, who ran the 2019 Democratic presidential primary campaign attacking Democrats who supported Medicare For All. Smith now apparently backs a public option called “Medicare for All Who Want It.”

It’s 2026. We’re all being medically looted. That looting is taking place at different rates for different people in different financial and medical situations — but it is all looting. Amid this disaster, the Democrats should be able to come up with a better, more compelling unified party position than, “If you like your insurance company death panel, you can keep your insurance company death panel.” The Democrats should be able to position themselves as a real opposition party against a GOP machine that has blocked universal health care at every step of its party’s existence.

The fact that Democrats still can’t do so — or, to put it more accurately, refuse to do so — is a complete outrage.