Fighting for Our Health By J. Lester Feder
April 8, 2009
Two security guards in dark suits towered over Mary Carol Jennings, a spiky-haired medical student wearing a white doctor's coat, as she and some fifty others tried to enter DC's Ritz-Carlton Hotel one morning in early March. The contingent included representatives of the AFL-CIO, MoveOn and the Campaign for America's Future. Jennings was flanked by two members of the National Nurses Organizing Committee who held a giant certificate for the head of America's Health Insurance Plans, the trade group meeting inside the hotel.
"We hereby present Karen Ignagni, CEO (of) AHIP, with this award for Best Protector of Health Insurance Industry Profits at the Expense of Our Health," read the mock certificate, which they decided to leave on her car after being denied entrance to the Ritz. "We are confident that Karen Ignagni will continue to protect profits while paying lip service to 'health care reform.'"
This showdown was organized by a nine-month-old coalition known as Health Care for America Now, which claims more than 850 affiliate organizations. Having learned from the mistakes made by reformers in 1993 and '94, HCAN is launching an early assault on the organization that led the crusade against President Clinton's proposal. According to HCAN spokeswoman Jacki Schechner, "There was no organization on the left" during the Clinton fight, a time when insurers "talked nice about reform until it got down to the nitty-gritty" details of the plan.
"What we expect (from AHIP) is that there's going to be a lot of yes up front and a lot of no behind the scenes," she says. "We know (what) we're seeing this time around is a coordinated effort to say we're not going to buy it--this is not to be left in the hands of DC lobbyists and special interests anymore."
Though AHIP is publicly espousing cooperation--Ignagni told President Obama at a March 5 healthcare summit that "You have our commitment to play, to contribute and to help pass healthcare reform this year"--the group has already staked out its opposition to one of the planks of the president's proposal that progressives regard as most essential: giving the American people the choice of a public insurance plan alongside a range of private ones. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican member of the Finance Committee, who also claims to be seeking a bipartisan compromise, has joined AHIP in drawing this line in the sand. HCAN has responded to Grassley's statements by broadcasting television ads in his state featuring a Des Moines nurse endorsing the choice of a public plan. .........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090427/feder?rel=hp_picks
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