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Is AHIP Really Listening Now? |
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We’ve got to give them credit.
Yesterday, at the health insurance industry’s “online forum,” part of their “listening tour” on health care reform, they did indeed attempt to answer some of the 1,700 questions we sent them. While we can still fault their choice to make the online forum a closed event, with questions that are pre-screened and approved by moderators, we’re glad they chose to listen to a few of the real voices who want real health care reform.
Ok, well, maybe there are a few more things we can find fault with here.
For one, on the surface, America’s Health Insurance Plans seems to be all about “balance.” Around seven of the questions had to do with securing quality, affordable health care for all, while about five of them seemed to want to preserve our broken system or leave us on our own in the free market. On its face, that’s a fairly even spread, almost equally covering both sides of the debate. But in reality, 82% of Americans think our health care system needs a “major overhaul,” which hardly sounds like they support preserving our broken, free market-centric system.
It’s telling that AHIP spent so much time discussion a “solution” to the issue a small minority of Americans support. They spent so much time talking about so-called “free market” solutions because that’s the solution they themselves support. Karen Ignagni said as much in their last online forum in Denver:
Karen_Ignagni: We have proposed a very comprehensive system of refundable tax credits for working families on a sliding scale with incomes up to 400% of the federal poverty level.
Tax credits, of course, won’t do a thing to solve our health care crisis. How will a working family who’s living paycheck to paycheck deal with tax credits? With a tax credit system, they would be forced to pay for health care over the course of the year out of pocket, and wait for a check from the IRS at the end of the year for reimbursement (that wouldn’t even nearly cover nearly the full cost of health care). It’s an idea that simply won’t work, yet it’s the one that allows the insurance industry to keep raking in their record profits, and so it’s the one AHIP supports.
Beyond that, in this discussion AHIP also let slip what will be the main line of attack from the insurance industry when the real health care fight gets going next year. In response to a questioner asking, “Why not single-payer,” the industry responds:
Mike_Tuffin: A single-payer system would mean adding a new function to the federal government that is larger than Social Security, Homeland Security and Defense COMBINED.
Surprise! The industry’s attack on health care reform will be the same this time around as it was last time, playing on people’s fear of “big government,” irregardless of the facts - like the fact that Medicare is more efficient than public insurance, mostly because consumers don’t have to pay for advertisements or profits. Though this attack was used against single-payer, we fully expect it to be used against any public health care plan.
Finally, AHIP decided to answer at least listen to our challenge to release the full schedule of their listening tour. We know they will be at the Hispano Chamber of Commerce in Albuquerque, New Mexico on September 9th. We’ll be doing our best to attend that event in force.
Of course, no further information was given about the rest of the listening tour, and of course, on the website for the “Campaign for an American Solution,” there is no mention that the New Mexico event is at the Hispano Chamber of Commerce. It really isn’t that hard to publish time and location information with your event announcements. The consistent lack of this information either means the insurance industry is hopelessly disorganized (which might help explain their huge overhead costs, which they pass on to you), or they are hiding from the American public.
Either way, rest assured, Health Care for America Now will be at every event we can track down to make sure the true views in America about health care reform are represented, not just industry spin.
(also posted at the NOW! blog)
