Sebelius And Insurance Industry Head Clash Over Health Care Reform

By Chingyu Wang-Talk Radio News Service

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) CEO Karen Ignagni offered back to back remarks Wednesday that highlighted the vast differences between how the Obama administration and the insurance industry are viewing the current attempt to reform the U.S. health care system.

Sebelius, who appeared at AHIP's annual conference, suggested that funds used by AHIP for attack ads could be better spent on lowering coverage costs.

"I am hopeful that you can take the assets that you have and the influence ... and use it to start calling for comprehensive reform to pass," said Sebelius. "Instead of spending energy attacking the parts of the proposal that you don't like, come to the table."

Ignagni held a press conference immediately after and took the opportunity to raise concerns that AHIP continues to have with the legislation proposed by Democrats.

"We are committed to bringing everyone into the [health care] system," said Ignagni. "The problem that we have with the current legislation is that we are very concerned that it will make health care more expensive, not more affordable."

Added the CEO, "We have offered very specific proposals [to ensure affordability,]" said Ignagni. "We believe that the legislation needs to be fixed in that area; that it still can be fixed."

Sebelius argued that attacking the Democrat's proposal is a "short-term strategy."

"You can continue the opposition to reform and if you do, and reform fails, I can give you a pretty good prediction of what happens next," Sebelius said. "By next March, premiums will take even a bigger bite out of American's wages, your market will shrink even further [and] more Americans will lose their employer-sponsored insurance."

Pelosi Criticizes Insurance Companies, Defends Public Option

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) fired back Thursday at what appears to be a major push by insurance companies to sway the health care reform debate.

“If anyone had any doubts about the need for such an option, you only need to look at the behavior of the health insurance industry this week,” Pelosi said during a press conference, referencing a report released by America’s Health Insurance Plans claiming health care costs would rise under the Senate Finance Committee’s bill.

Pelosi described the report as “totally discredited.”

The Speaker went on to explain that while the mandate requiring individuals to purchase insurance is becoming more widely discussed, support for the public option is growing in response.

“If you’re going to mandate that people must buy insurance, why would you sell them to the lions den of the insurance industry without some leverage with a public option?”

“We may call it something else by Tuesday,” Pelosi added. ‘It might have a better name.”

America's Health Insurance Plans holds news conference to announce results of census

America’s Health Insurance Plans held a news conference today to announce the results of their annual census. The census says, “More than 6.1 million Americans are covered by Health Savings Account (HSA)-eligible insurance plans, a 35 percent increase since last year” Nearly half of the enrollees are age forty or over and “30 percent of individuals covered by an HSA plan were in the small group market, 45 percent of individual covered by an HSA plan were in the large-group market, and the remaining 25 percent were in the individual market.” Ahip.org has plenty of information and the release of their census’. They conduct some of the largest surveys on these markets.