"As we roll out new products we will continue to price businesses for appropriate margins. We will not sacrifice profitability for membership. ” – Wellpoint CEO Angela Braly

With the health care reform debate heating up in Congress, the insurance lobby has successfully shifted attention away from what is needed to reach a compromise.  The insurance industry’s lobbying arm, American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), talks of ceasing the practice of charging higher premiums for those with pre-existing conditions as long as the government mandates the purchase of health insurance.  Seems like a fair compromise, right?  But they don’t stop there.

AHIP is now crying foul over the proposal of a public health insurance option, saying they can’t compete with such an alternative.  This stance isn’t surprising, given the profit margins the industry seeks to preserve.  The top four insurance companies made a combined $11 billion in 2007 with United Health Care pulling in the most at $4.65 billion.  Meanwhile, the average CEO salary was $8.75 million in the health insurance sector with Aetna’s CEO topping the list at $32 million.

Insurance companies are businesses, and their bottom line is at the center of all of their policy negotiations. This is made clear when the CEO of Aetna sees payouts for medical care at less than 80 cents on the dollar as a victory, and the CEO of Wellpoint says she will not “sacrifice profitability for membership.”

AHIP President Karen Ignagni continues to talk reform, but her recommendations do little to address the real problem.  She talks about “repairing the safety net” by forcing states to maximize enrollments in SCHIP and Medicaid.  She talks about “a helping hand to working families” through the creation of tax credits and subsidies to help pay the cost of health insurance for families making up to $80,000 a year.  In each of these cases, the taxpayers are the ones making a sacrifice, while the industry’s profits remain the same.

Making health insurance affordable is great, but using taxpayer dollars to subsidize corporate profits is not what we need.  How do these recommendations pressure the insurance industry to guarantee coverage will be available when you need it most?  They don’t.  How do these ideas use the competitive pressures of the marketplace to increase quality and reduce costs?  Once again, they don’t.

The point is this: The goal of the health insurance industry is to protect a cash cow.  The goal of the health care reform movement is to create a system that will actually help us when we’re sick -- not a system that throws millions into bankruptcy, consumes more and more of our economy, denies as many claims as possible and helps make us sicker. 

Now is the time for real health care reform.  Now is the time to demand quality, affordable health care for all.  Now is the time to demand a public health insurance option that competes directly with private insurance plans.  On April 18th, Reps. Jan Schakowsky and Danny Davis will join with Health Care for America NOW! to demand health care for all.  The meeting will be held at St. Augustine College at 1345 W. Argyle in Chicago.  Go to www.Hcanil.org for more details. 

John Gaudette joined Citizen Action/Illinois in September 2008 as the Illinois Director of the Health Care for America Now! campaign.