Health Insurance Industry’s ‘Duplicitous’ Campaign to Kill Reform

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.afscmeblog.org/2009/10/22/health-insurance-industry%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98duplicitous%E2%80%99-campaign-to-kill-reform/?__utma=1.2346843193277722000.1237762290.1256035317.1256253652.83&__utmb=1.6.10.1256253652&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1252121179.75.15.utmcsr=local251.com|utmccn=%28referral%29|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/links.htm&__utmv=-&__utmk=23752634

October 22nd, 2009

From Health Care for America Now (HCAN):

The veil has finally come off the insurance companies’ charade as one of the insurance industry’s top lobbyists, Steve Champlin (who also works for AHIP, the insurance industry’s front group and lobbying arm), told Republican Members of Congress not to vote for health reform under any circumstances:

“There is absolutely no interest, no reason Republicans should ever vote for this thing. They have gone from a party that got killed 11 months ago to a party that is rising today. And they are rising up on the turmoil of health care,” said Champlin. “So when they vote for a health care reform bill, whatever it is, they are giving comfort to the enemy who is down.”

“Long before the Republicans discovered that the House bill was a strategy to kill seniors and all that kind of stuff the plan was already unpopular,” he added, underscoring why Republicans shouldn’t attach themselves to the legislation.

The remarks came during the opening session of AHIP’s annual State Issues Conference in which both Champlin and his co-panelist seemed to concede that reform would pass and will include a variation of a public option for insurance coverage.

The industry that treats rape as a pre-existing condition is finally coming clean. Their message: Republicans should kill health care reform, otherwise they will be giving comfort to the “enemy.”

So the insurance companies are finally coming clean that they’re against health reform and that they’ve always been against health reform. It’s slightly more honest of them.

Read more at HCAN’s NOW! blog: http://blog.healthcareforamericanow.org/2009/10/22/the-charade-is-over-insurance-companies-say-they-oppose-reform/

And check out this interview from ThinkProgress with Wendell Potter, a former VP of communications at health insurance giant CIGNA, about exactly how insurance companies derail reform and preserve the status quo. Working in public relations for CIGNA, Potter had a direct role in multiple campaigns in the past to minimize public outrage at insurance company abuses and defeat legislation aimed at regulating insurers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeE32u5Avg4&feature=player_embedded