Insurers Gave U.S. Chamber $86 Million Used to Oppose Obama's Health Law

[kpete]

Source: Bloomberg

Insurers Gave U.S. Chamber $86 Million Used to Oppose Obama's Health Law
By Drew Armstrong - Nov 17, 2010

Health insurers last year gave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce $86.2 million that was used to oppose the health-care overhaul law, according to tax records and people familiar with the donation.

The insurance lobby, whose members include Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Philadelphia-based Cigna Corp., gave the money to the Chamber in 2009 as Democrats were increasing their criticism of the industry, according to one person who requested anonymity because laws don’t require identifying funding sources. The Chamber of Commerce received the money from the Washington-based America’s Health Insurance Plans when the industry was urging Congress to drop a plan to create a competing public insurance option.

The spending exceeded the insurer group’s entire budget from a year earlier and accounted for 40 percent of the Chamber’s $214.6 million in 2009 spending. The expenditures reflect the insurers’ attempts to influence the bill after Democrats in Congress and the White House put more focus on regulation of the insurance industry.

The $86.2 million paid for advertisements, polling and grass roots events to drum up opposition to the bill that’s projected to provide coverage to 32 million previously uninsured Americans, according to Tom Collamore, a Chamber of Commerce spokesman. The Chamber used the funds to “advance a market- based health-care system and advocate for fundamental reform that would improve access to quality care while lowering costs,” it said in a statement.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2010-11-17/insurers-gave-u-s-chamber-86-million-used-to-oppose-obama-s-health-law.html

[ProSense]

1. Think Progress:

New Report Reveals Health Insurance Industry Pumped $86 Million Into The U.S. Chamber To Kill Reform

This morning, Bloomberg reporter Drew Armstrong broke an incredible story revealing that health insurance companies, like UnitedHealth and CIGNA, funneled $86.2 million into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2009 to pay for the Chamber’s multifaceted campaign to kill President Obama’s health reform legislation. In January of this year, the National Journal’s Peter Stone reported that insurers had pumped $20 million into the Chamber for its anti-health reform campaign. Armstrong’s report exposes the true extent to which insurers worked to fool the public and defeat health reform. However, the report also poses new questions about the role of insurance companies in the health reform debate.

Why did insurance companies try to hide their donations to the Chamber’s anti-health reform campaign? Given their own unpopularity and Obama’s pledge to be the first leader to successfully reform America’s broken health system, the health insurance industry hatched a plan to fundamentally deceive the public, the press, and politicians. Instead of fighting reform tooth and nail, the insurance industry worked to manipulate the process and ultimately kill reforms by adopting what ThinkProgress termed “The Duplicitous Campaign.” In public, health insurance lobbyists and executives promised to support reform and work closely with reform advocates. The top health insurance lobbyist, Karen Ignagni, went to the White House early in the reform debate and promised Obama, “You have our commitment to play, to contribute and to help pass health-care reform this year.”

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[andym]

2. No wonder the US Chamber, the biggest corporatist organization in the USA, was so opposed to HCR

86 million dollars buys a lot of influence.

[txlibdem]

3. I guess our President didn't COMPROMISE enough with them?

I sure wish Pres. Obama had bent a little more over backwards for big insurance. With 30 million more customers handed to them and absolutely NO price or cost controls I'm not quite sure exactly what they have to gripe about with this bill.

Maybe they're pissed because the feds are telling them HOW to rip us off; they wanted to choose the method themselves?

[andym]

5. They don't like the idea of overseers or real competetion

in theory or in practice. Even if only only some of the regulations work, the regulations will cut into their most profitable practices.

Sure they are happy about 30 million healthy new customers, but the trade offs from the insurers' point of view are obviously not acceptable to them, if the secret 86 million dollars means anything. They obviously want HCR repealed and are encouraging their GOP allies to do so.

I wonder how much they contributed this year to the GOP in the midterms through their cover organizations.

[happygoluckytoyou]

4. Can anyone spell KLASS WARFAIR ? i guess not

[dflprincess]

6. Your health "care" dollars at work.

Remember this next time they announce they have to raise premiums.

Though, of course, both UHG and Cigna will claim no premium dollars were part of this $86 million.

[andym]

7. I wonder what role they played in the ascention of the tea party last year. NT.