Why the medical insurance industry is cheering Obama’s victory.

But while the FEHBP is a government program, the health care it provides is offered by private insurers, in what's called managed competition. The government provides a basic amount toward employees' coverage, and the employees can then choose which insurance company and which plan they want to use, including the option to pay a premium for more comprehensive coverage.

"Everybody talks about what a good program Congress has," Rowe said in August. "It's completely managed by private insurers."

By offering something like the FEHBP to tens of millions of Americans, Obama's plan would in essence expand the demand for health-insurance companies beyond what the market could otherwise bear, with the government picking up much of the bill.

Obama's plan would increase the market by a huge amount. According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, Obama's plan would cover just under half of uninsured Americans, about 24 million people. By comparison, McCain's plan would have covered just 5 percent of the uninsured, or 2.6 million.

Of course, Obama's plan includes sprinkles of tough talk directed at insurance companies. During the campaign, he promised to prevent what he calls "unjustified price increases" by forcing companies "to pay out a reasonable share of their premiums for patient care instead of keeping exorbitant amounts for profits and administration." But absent specific numbers as to what qualifies as exorbitant, any hypothetical risk to insurance companies' profit margins is more than outweighed by the promise of tens of millions of new customers.

The health-insurance industry stands to be one of the big winners of the Obama presidency. That doesn't mean liberals shouldn't support his health care reforms. Maybe the first step toward fixing health care in America is convincing the Democratic base—and Democrats in Congress, on whose support Obama's plan will ultimately depend—that what's good for insurance companies can also be good for them.