A Second Look | Insurance Lobby Commits Malicious Misrepresentation, Raises Demand for Public Option (UPDATE)

UPDATE: Oct 13, 2009
via White House Office Of Health Reform Director “Blindsided” By AHIP Study

“The misleading and harmful claims made by the profit-driven insurance companies are politicking for corporate gain at its worst,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.

Democrats have reason to worry. Insurance industry opposition helped sink President Bill Clinton’s health care plan in the 1990s by fanning fears that people with coverage would wind up paying more.

Ignagni [Karen Ignagni, President and CEO of (AHIP) America’s Health Insurance Plans] was unequivocal in her support for the PricewaterhouseCoopers conclusions. The company is “a world-class firm” with “a stellar reputation,” she said.

The study projects that the legislation would add $1,700 a year to the cost of family coverage in 2013, when most of the major provisions of the Baucus bill would be in effect.

Premiums for a single person would go up by $600 more than would be the case without the legislation, it estimated.

In 10 years’ time, premiums would be $4,000 higher for a family plan, and $1,500 more for individual coverage.

The insurance industry has retaliated by issuing this threat to Congress and to the American people. They threaten to raise our insurance premiums by a huge amount if they don’t get every single thing they want, like a spoiled child. AHIP is crying over the weakening of the mandate for all to have insurance or face some penalty.  

The American people don’t react kindly to threats.

More information is required. I can see that our citizenry has become skeptic of facts and figures gathered by big corporations for the sake of big corporations, and rightly so. It does my heart good to see the pause, or the calm, from the heartland over this attempt by AHIP to intimidate them. Once the majority hears what Big Insurance is up to, the people will gather with torches and pitchforks. By issuing a threat to raise the premiums, AHIP has unwittingly given reason and support for the public option.

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via  Insurers Mount Attack Against Health Reform

WASHINGTON — The health insurance industry is warning that a comprehensive Senate bill would increase the cost of a typical policy by hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars a year after lawmakers eased up on the requirement that all Americans get coverage.

I got up this morning, got my coffee, checked some things on my blog’s dashboard, then started on today’s news when I found this article in the Huffington Post. It’s only 8:12 AM and I see that there is over 500 comments on this article already. This is the difficult part of living on the west coast.

I’ve read over some of the comments and I agree to the ones that say that the actions of AHIP and the insurance industry in general provoke the desires for the public option. They fan the flames when they threaten higher prices if they don’t get what they want.

…”It’s a health insurance company hatchet job, plain and simple,” said the spokesman, Scott Mulhauser.

It’s more than just an insurance industry “hatchet job”, it is an attempt to hold congress in duress. I interpret “hatchet job” as a malicious misrepresentation of the effect that the Baucus bill will really have on the treasury and our own purses.

White House health care spokeswoman Linda Douglass concurred. “This is an insurance industry analysis that is designed to reach a conclusion which benefits the industry, and does not represent what the bill does,” she said.

If the insurance companies hate it so much, then it has to be beneficial to the customer. The next move should be for Senator Reid to start talking up the public plan when consolidating the two bills. That would make the insurance industry SCREAM.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/12/insurers-mount-attack-aga_n_317159.html

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