Karen Ignagni, CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans and the most powerful health care lobbyist in the country, recently sent a letter to Senator Baucus positively gushing over the so-called “reforms” that his plan proposed.  However, she, the health care lobbyist, would make a few changes just to make sure that the insurance industry isn’t in any way hit.

Ignagni admits that co-ops are useless as she argues against the creation of a public option and strikes down Baucus’ exchange idea.  In other words, allow us in the insurance industry to fix the problem…we’re trustworthy.

- ‘Government Created’ Cooperatives = ‘Slower March Toward A Government-Run Plan’:Ignagni argues that cooperatives will retain certain competitive advantages. The cooperative would receive start-up funds “it would not have to be repaid” and “the government would continue to act as a “player and referee” with the Secretary of HHS serving as Chair of the “advisory board.” However, despite insurers’ concerns of increased competition the bill’s ‘network of cooperatives‘ would be unable to compete in today’s concentrated health insurance markets. As the CBO has concluded, “the proposed co-ops had very little effect on the estimates of total enrollment in the exchanges or federal costs because, as they are described in the specifications, they seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country or to noticeably affect federal subsidy payments.”

Ignagni also proposes the following:

- Benefit Flexibility To Allow Insurers To Design Policies That Attract Healthier Enrollees:“This means that benefit packages should give consumers flexible options to meet diverse needs and be aligned with the level of premium subsidies provided by Congress, and that the coverage requirement needs to avoid creating incentives for healthy people to forego the purchase of coverage,” Ignagni writes. The letter also expresses concerns about the new national benefit standards.

Definition:

In other words, insurers want to design packages that attract healthier applicants and deter “enrollment by those in poorer health.” “For example, insurers could offer a benefits design that omits or severely limits services needed by people with serious medical conditions, while offering richer benefits in other areas such as vision care or health-club memberships.” Well-defined standard benefit packages could preclude the industry from slowly moving everyone into high deductible policies.

Anyone who believes big insurance will heal itself is smoking something.  Without a strong and robust public option that will provide REAL competition to the insurance industry it will continue to price gouge customers and monopolize the market by inhumanly denying claims and perpetuating the continuing loss of 45 thousand American lives each year. 

We need a a strong and robust public option to provide a REAL choice for health care for all Americans.