SA Insurance News
July 24, 2008
by Staff Writer, Julie Armstrong
Health Care Groups Push Reform
“AHIP or America’s Health Insurance Plans in Columbus Ohio launched a nationwide campaign titled “Campaign for an American Solution.” According to CEO, Karen Ignagni, “It is very important to take the campaign out of Washington.”
The campaign supports grassroots initiative for affordable, quality and valuable with choices for America’s uninsured and uninsurable. AHIP’s plan is to expand Medicare and Medicaid on a sliding scale for impoverished US citizens. The announcement of the campaign was met with protest from Health Care for America Now, HCAN, claiming that the AHIP plan will “mess up” the American system.
"AHIP will try, against all the facts, to convince us that we are happy and well served by the private insurance. The reality is, we're not." Richard Kirsch, HCAN's national campaign manager, in a release said, "Americans know that the last people we can trust to fix the health care mess are insurance companies."
Representative Pete Stark (D-CA) in a statement on Tuesday said, "I hope it is true that these companies intend to be a positive force in health reform efforts, but I tend to be cautious when the fox starts drawing up plans for a new henhouse"
Both groups maintain that they are in line with Senator John McCain’s and Senator Barack Obama’s, presumptive presidential nominees for Republicans and Democrats respectively and that both candidates are speaking on the very same issues.