“You know, when I was — when I was young, just got out of college, I had to buy auto insurance. I had a beat-up old car. And I won’t name the name of the insurance company, but there was a company, let’s call it Acme Insurance in — in Illinois. And I was paying my premiums every month. After about six months I got rear-ended, and I called up Acme and said, “You know, I’d like to see if I can get my car repaired.” And they laughed at me over the phone.

“Because really, this was set up not to actually provide insurance, what it was set up was to meet the legal requirements. But it really wasn’t serious insurance.

“Now, it’s one thing if you got an old beat-up car that you can’t get fixed. It’s another thing if your kid is sick or you’ve got breast cancer.”

– President Barack Obama, at yesterday’s healthcare summit. One wonders why he didn’t pursue a lawsuit against his insurer for failing to pay his claim as they are legally required to do or report this incident to the insurance regulators in Illinois – which would have given him the opportunity to recover even larger damages. Or did Obama buy a policy without collision coverage without knowing or understanding what he had bought? Either way, it was not an impressive story.

Obama’s stories about insurance companies, which tumble out from time to time, suggest there is more than just an ideological or political motive to his efforts at a makeover of the health care system. Actual animus seems to be involved as well.