First Lady Michelle Obama took part in a White House event this afternoon to mark National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. While such events have been mostly noncontroversial in the past, Mrs. Obama used the occasion to launch an extended attack on the insurance industry, the Obama administration's current target in the ongoing battle over national health care legislation.

After paying brief tribute to people working in the field, Mrs. Obama noted the progress that has been made in breast cancer research and treatment since former First Lady Nancy Reagan took up the cause in the early 1980s. But there is still far to go, Mrs. Obama said -- and that brought her to the insurance business.

"We have a health care system in this country that simply is not working for too...