Crash the Insurance Lobby's Party

The health insurance industry is launching a public relations and lobbying campaign [1] today that is designed to convince people that they are on the side of reform even as they support a status-quo solution suspiciously similar to one pushed by Sen. John McCain [2] and congressional conservatives. But a group of determined activists is making sure that people see through this smoke-and-mirrors show.

The event kicking off the effort by America's Health Insurance Plans is a public forum in Columbus, Ohio, at noon Tuesday with a group of uninsured people. Health Care for America Now [3], the coalition that recently formed to push a universal health care plan that curbs the dominance and excesses of health insurance companies, is signing up people to, as they unabashedly say, "crash their party."

Jason Rosenbaum wrote in HCAN's blog: [4]

The idea that Americans can be satisfied with the current state of health care in America is silly. Americans aren't satisfied with rising prices, yet lower coverage. We aren't satisfied with the insurance industry's murder-by-spreadsheet. We need a public option for health insurance, and we need to make sure insurance industry practices that kill Americans are made illegal.

The health insurance lobby calls its new publicity effort "Campaign for an American Solution." It is as bald-faced in its advocacy of corporate-profits-first health care as it is blatant in its jingoism.

Earlier this month, AHIP released a statement [5] detailing how it intended to position itself in the health care debate. It includes a proposal that would essentially allow the insurance industry to cherry-pick the healthiest 80 percent of the country to insure while the remaining 20 percent would be dumped into some sort of public high-risk pool. They also support the use of tax credits to help people buy private insurance policies. This mirrors the approaches advocated by President Bush and by Sen. John McCain, who has said that if he becomes president the hallmarks of his health care reform plan would include tax credits (that would cover far less than half the cost of a private insurance policy, if you can get one) and an ill-defined risk pool for people private companies did not want to insure.

This is how Dr. Don McCanne of Physicians for a National Health Program sees what the insurance industry wants:

So the insurance industry wants to sign up 100,000 individuals in its fan club to provide free marketing for the private insurance concept. In spite of criticisms, the industry has not changed its goals. They want taxpayers to provide coverage for those too expensive to insure — the 20 percent of people who are responsible for 80 percent of health care costs, but the industry is quite willing to offer guaranteed coverage to everyone else — the 80 percent of people who are quite healthy.

Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., released a statement saying that "America's Health Insurance Plans' new 'Campaign for an American Solution' rings as true as the tobacco industry's efforts to end smoking. There is nothing grassroots about it. It is designed, financed, and coordinated through their Washington trade association with the singular goal of protecting their profits."

He added that while he hopes that the insurance industry can contribute positively to the health care debate—and it does need to be brought to the table—"I tend to be cautious when the fox starts drawing up plans for a new henhouse."

What the nation cannot afford to see again is the insurance industry come up with the equivalent of the "Harry and Louise" ads of the 1990s, with the money-changers in the health care temple scaring the public away from principled solutions because their lucre is threatened. That is why wherever AHIP brings its so-called "American Solutions" dog-and-pony show in the next few weeks, show up and say: No more multimillion-dollar industry feel-good campaigns. We want real change in our health care system that leads to true universal care. And that means that you, insurers, will have to change, too.

Facts and talking points about health care reform are in our "Making Sense" alert [6]on the progressive Health Care for America Now plan.