AHIP’s Two-Faced Campaign Unravels: No ‘Comfort To The Enemy’ Vs. ‘Committed To Bipartisan Health Reform’
AHIP’s Two-Faced Campaign Unravels: No ‘Comfort To The Enemy’ Vs. ‘Committed To Bipartisan Health Reform’
For months, ThinkProgess has documented how the private health insurance industry has waged a duplicitous, “two-faced” campaign to kill health reform. Because the industry understands that the public views it in a largely negative light, the industry presents itself as proactively working hand-in-hand with legislators to produce reform. However, behind the scenes — using attacks from front groups, allied politicians, think tanks, lobbyists, and right-wing media — the industry is coordinating a massive effort to kill all reform.
As Congress approaches a final vote on health reform, the industry is having difficulty concealing its underhanded campaign. USA Today reports that Karen Ignagni, the President of the insurance industry trade group AHIP, fired off a letter reminding Democrats that despite releasing a deeply misleading report last week slashing the Senate Finance health bill, her companies are still “committed to bipartisan health reform”:
“You don’t turn against reform simply because people have declared you’ve turned against reform. That’s not what we’re doing.“
The self-conscious letter stands in stark contract with what Ignagni’s own lobbyists said today at an AHIP conference. According to the Huffington Post, Steve Champlin, a lobbyist for a firm representing AHIP, declared bipartisan health reform dead and urged GOP lawmakers to refuse to help pass a bill:
“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 [...] So when they vote for a health care reform bill, whatever it is, they are giving comfort to the enemy who is down.”
Private insurers have already been caught using a stealth lobbying firm to send employees to rowdy town halls (and radical tea party events), sharing lobbyists with slash-and-burn anti-health reform attack groups, and paying a number of conservative pundits who regularly appear in major media outlets to slam health reform. Almost immediately after AHIP issued its “hatchet job” report against the Senate Finance bill, Republican lawmakers began parroting the report’s talking points verbatim. The candid slip by Champlin today, whose firm has been paid hundreds of thousands by AHIP, underscores a larger effort by insurers to derail reform, even bills without robust measures like the public option.
Click here for ThinkProgress’ research page on the health insurers’ campaign against reform.
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Corporate propaganda machine, fueled by our health care premiums.
This is so wrong on so many counts….
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:29 pmThey have gone from a party that got killed 11 months ago to a party that is rising today.
Did someone just admit that the Republicans are a bunch of zombies, ghouls and vampires?
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:29 pmthat mug reminds me of the Joker.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:30 pmscary!
Karen Ignagni, the President of the insurance industry trade group AHIP, fired off a letter reminding Democrats that despite releasing a deeply misleading report last week slashing the Senate Finance health bill, her companies are still “committed to bipartisan health reform”:
The lesson is a leopard does not change its spots. There is no reason to believe anything they say. The insurance companies should be ignored while the final bill is being worked out.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:34 pmIts the same fear factor as decades ago to protect profits and not lower healthcare costs.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:40 pmSo when they vote for a health care reform bill, whatever it is, they are giving comfort to the enemy who is down.”
How about a swift kick in the nutz to the enemy who is down.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:41 pmNext they will be saying the firms are entitled to higher premiums because people died from rescission.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:42 pmAnd YES. I’m in a kicking mood today. These obfuscators don’t get what a democracy is all about. KICK EM.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:42 pmReally?
How?
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:43 pmAs long as “Health Care Reform” requires EVERYBODY to BUY Overpriced Crappy Insurance, Ignani and the Insurance Companies are All for it.
I think it is Remarkable that Americans WANT a Public Option In Spite of a Relentless Torrent Of Lies, Distortions, and Scare Tactics.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:44 pmThis comment has been voted down. Click to read.
Once again krispywhitestooge ventures comes up with a meaningless analogy.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:48 pmOf course the Health insurance companies are committed to bipartisan reform because it leans heavily towards the mandated purchase of insurance from private companies. Duh.
The enemy comment has me curious though. Does it mean they are acknowledging it is a war between private profits and public health? If so, lets get to it. No prisoners, no mercy, no quarter given. A handful of corprocrats versus the majority of American citizens.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:51 pmI’m glad I’m not the only one who ouldn’t make any sense out of that.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:52 pmTroll flameout at #11. Someone grab the Windex.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:52 pm“There is absolutely no interest, no reason Republicans should ever vote for this thing.”
What about, you know, doing what’s best for the American people regardless of whether or not it helps you win elections?
Oh, sorry, she said Republicans. Never mind.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:55 pmMaybe a pretend buggy whip business…
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:55 pmkwsventures,
If this is not your company, listed below, then I have a feeling they would like for you to stop using their company name.
KWS Ventures
5247 Mare Creek Dr
Crestview, FL 32539-8887(Fort Walton Beach, FL Metro Area)
Phone: (850) 423-0606
Care to comment and tell the truth for a change?
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:56 pmKWS, do you think scamming people on insurance premiums is an honest way of playing investor with other peoples money?
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:58 pmAnd if these MBA hedge funds are playing with your money shouldnt you be getting a return?
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:59 pmThe people who listen to the bullsh i t this women spits out are just plain stupid. They are the uniform masses that get their news from the propaganda station, Fox News, and they listen to Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and Sean Hannity. The other people who believe the her bull crap are just plain stupid Americans who are inclined to believe the worst of government even when it is trying to help them. Although I will admit that the current bill as it is written does very very little to contain cost, but there are a few good things in it.
If Max (sell out) Bauchus, Joe (I only care about Israel and war) Libermann, Blanche (I am for sell) Lincoln, Ben (I’m too stupid to be a Senator) Nelson, Arron (I’m on the take) Pryor, Mary (I take bribes) Landreu, and the other “low down dog so called democrats” in the senate, weren’t on the take, we’d get real health reform. So we can’t just blame the dumb a s s republican voter for what we are about to have jamed down our collective throats. It amount to a s h i t sandwich that we will all have to swallow and it isn’t going to make a bit of difference in the end. Finally, I’m totally disappointed in the President for sell out too, in fact I want all of the money I donated to his campaign back. I didn’t think “health reform” was going to be written by sell outs and the insurance industry.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:02 pmHow long will it be before we see AHIP – and their sycophants – running through Intensive Care Units, pulling plugs and knee capping comatose patients?
After all, their “enemy” includes the infirmed, sick, dying – whether they admit it or not.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:03 pmThey say enemy but AHIP insurance companies have some 200 million policy holders.
The enemy is their own clients. The prize is the money in their pockets.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:05 pmThats true, I think, Lokidog, the enemy is those who make expensive claims. The friend is the young people who dont make claims.
The whole ‘industry’ is misnamed. Its the anti-health care industry.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:07 pmIve invested in the insurance scam for decades and as an investor who has not gotten any returns on my investment, nr made any claims, I want all the monthly investments I made back.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:10 pm“They have gone from a party that got killed 11 months ago to a party that is rising today.”
Once a sh*t-sandwich salesman, always a sh*t-sandwich salesman.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:10 pmkws’s metaphore lacks gramatical relevance as usual.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:14 pmfrom the website page Historical References To The Origin of Maritime Insurance
From the very earliest times of maritime trading, it was appreciated by both traders and carriers alike that maritime risks constitute a greater hazard than those encountered on land. To try to minimise this risk, early merchants usually sailed with their goods as ’supercargo’. This enabled them not only to supervise stowage and carriage, but also to finalise the transaction for the sale of their goods, and obtain payment for them at the port of delivery.[3]
But merchants could not always accompany their vessels, nor could their presence ensure shielding from the risk to which their goods were subjected. What was needed was a contract which would protect merchants against the caprices of fortune.[4] The earliest contracts, in which the burden of the happening of uncertain events was transferred to another at a price, were not what we know today as insurance contracts at a premium. They were an extended facility of the maritime loan developed by the Babylonians in the 3rd millennium BC.[5] The Babylonian system was not a ’stand-alone’ contract of insurance. It involved rather a ‘premium’ percentage of interest chargeable on a loan for the purchase of the goods to be traded. The lender of the money, in return for the ‘premium’ interest, assumed the risk of the goods in transit.
OK. I get why cargo needed to be insured.
How in the flaming Hades does this apply to our health?
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:14 pmOT – Ron Reagan just kicked Frank Gaffney’s but on Harball. Gaffney’s group honored Cheney and Scooter Libbey last night and Ron said they honor a war criminal. BUT near the end Gaffney said something, I don’t know what because they were shouting all over each other, and Reagan told him he better watch his mouth.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:17 pmShayne, Gaffney made a comment about Ron’s dad being proud of him, and that’s when Ron told him he had better watch his mouth.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:21 pmand more from the above mentioned article
Although not an insurance contract in its own right, the maritime loan, disburdening the uncertainty of events onto the lender, is reported by Trennery[6] as having been embraced by the Venetians, the Greeks and the Romans.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Romans did not recognise a contract of insurance which was not coupled to a maritime loan.[7] Yet the notion of the transfer of risk to another for a price was certainly well developed by the time of Justinian, whose Digest contained provisions regulating the rate of premium interest covering the assumption of risk as part of a maritime loan.[8]
Emerigon’s comments, written as they were in 1783, are perhaps more perspicacious of Roman ‘insurance’ practice:
If the Romans did not give this contract any distinct place in their laws, it is because this warlike people were wont to abandon to slaves and freed men the care of commerce by sea and land. But it did not the less exist in itself. It was enveloped under a common and generic form; a wild plant not yet cultivated, to which the spirit of commerce has since given the development and perfectness it possesses at this day.
It was the ’spirit of commerce’ which indeed took the Babylonian, Venetian and Roman wild plant of the maritime loan and developed it into a contract in its own right. The maritime loan, with its premium interest, had been used and developed throughout the Middle Ages until in 1227 AD Pope Gregory IX issued a Papal See prohibiting it upon grounds of usury.[9] The church at that time was greatly concerned with interest and usury but, although theologians distrusted the whole concept of insurance,[10] the Pope had at no stage prohibited the assumption of risk per se. Nor indeed was insurance in itself in conflict with canon law. It was thus a natural process to separate the loan contract (with its ‘usurious’ maritime interest) from the undertaking to assume risk. From this process, probably, the independent contract of insurance was born.[11]
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:24 pm[...] So when they vote for a health care reform bill, whatever it is, they are giving comfort to the enemy who is down.”
… do you think he/they REALLY believe that bull…?
or is it just the sell…?
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:25 pmAlan Grayson just said he has trouble listening to Cheney speak because of the blood that drips from his teeth. Oh smack.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:25 pmThanks angels81 I kind of suspected it must have been about his dad but I didn’t know what it was.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:27 pmLooks like a trolly spirochete has infested the thread. VDT is on the rise.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:34 pmABC News Breaking: Senate HCR likely to include Public Option
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is leaning toward including the creation of a new government-run insurance program – the so-called public option – in the health care reform bill he will bring to the full Senate in the coming weeks.
Likely?? Leaning??? Still…this is a Hopefull development.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/10/22/796025/-ABC-News-Breaking:-Senate-HCR-likely-to-include-Public-Option-
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:35 pmHoodathunk says:
Looks like a trolly spirochete has infested the thread. VDT is on the rise.
Ewww…! Is it infectious?
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:53 pmand then there’s…
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:53 pmSnowe Says She Won’t Support Immediate Public Insurance Option
Bloomberg – Kristin Jensen, Catherine Dodge – ?1 hour ago?
Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) — Senator Olympia Snowe said she won’t support the immediate creation of a government-run insurance program and raised the possibility that legislation overhauling the health system won’t be …
Liberals Open Fire on Harry Reid CBS News
Public option roars back to life True/Slant
Politico – Washington Post – New York Times – Examiner.com
all 996 news articles »
If a single Democratic Senator doesn’t vote for cloture and this bill is fillibustered to death, I’m going to empty my savings account into the primary challengers’ campaign account.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:56 pmMOFOS!!!
Ewww…! Is it infectious?
Mostly just irritating.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:58 pmOctober 22nd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Since I believe the President to be the ultimate chess-player, I’ll throw this out:
Did he let the debate last this long, and in fact, WANT it to last this long, because of the huge hikes that folks will see next month during open enrollment? I heard a news blurb in the past couple days stating premiums were going up 10-14%, for less coverage.
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:10 pmThe 10-14% is right in line with a 120% increase in the next decade for health insurance. All this increase while never producing a car, a computer, a dishwasher, or anything else for that matter, but paper. Its outrageous, the costs are not based on supply and demand and rise continuously.
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:39 pmIt’s true greed and lying is ugly inside and out…just look at that face of ms ignagni.
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:28 pmAnd that’s on top pf the 9% last year, and the 9% the year before… it’s a huge snowball of greed.
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:30 pmRUCerious says:
If a single Democratic Senator doesn’t vote for cloture and this bill is fillibustered to death, I’m going to empty my savings account into the primary challengers’ campaign account.
I don’t think that will be necessary. A filibuster would essentially stop all business in the Senate and the Republicans will be the beneficiary of all the bad publicity and anger over the filibuster. I think the Dems should bring the bill to a vote to force the Republicans on the record to vote against the bill.
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:03 pmIf she had scales, I’d swear that she swallowed Jon Voight whole in Anaconda. Did Rahm make a deal with woman? We’ll soon know the answer.
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:48 pmIt seems patently unfair to indict the collective behavior of a very large group of people as dishonest, by virtue of the language within its publicity releases(AHIP’s).
IMO, TP has correctly inferred arrogance on their part, by virtue of the fact that health care reform claims-making is always indirectly critical of health care. However, IMO, a factual deficiency does not reflect an absolute, moral problem, but it may represent a serious, literary one.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:34 pmListened briefly to Neal Boortz this afternoon, and him telling a caller how he (Neal) would reform health care.
First, what he didn’t offer: nothing about eliminating pre-existing conditions. Nothing about free care for the lowest income-earners.
He did, however, suggest a few items that I recall: insurance companies should be allowed to do business across state lines; give a tax credit to doctors equal to the $ amount (time and supplies) of the care they give to those who are in poverty; give a tax credit to people to help pay for insurance; something about not letting the U.S. government certify doctors (leaving it to the private sector); and a few other things not worth mentioning.
Oh, and he went on about all those people from other countries who come to America for their health care needs.
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:24 amgood site…useful infro….
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:53 ampearl jewelry wholesale
pandora charms
beads
gemstone beads
That face is covering a perfectly beautiful skull.
October 24th, 2009 at 6:04 pm