August 14, 2010 – Health Care for America Now (HCAN) partners, including Washington Community Action Network, SEIU, AFT, Puget Sound ARA, Our Washington and others came to the Seattle Convention Center to protest the 1,000 insurance industry lobbyists and executives who showed up to influence state regulators.
The HMO and insurance industries have spent a breathtaking $768,864,642 since 2007 on federal lobbying to influence public policy and elected officials, according to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics. In 2010 they have not let up, despite passage of the new health reform law. They’re now trying to undermine the law with intense pressure on state officials to water down the federal provisions and interfere with their implementation.
The top five companies reported a record $12.2 billion in net earnings last year. That’s huge. And the top executives at 10 for-profit companies have pocketed nearly $1 billion in compensation in the last 10 years. That’s staggeringly huge. As a group they received a 167 percent pay raise in 2009 while average American workers saw wages grow about 2 percent. That’s offensively indefensible.
Partners delivered lobbyist disinfectant kits to state insurance commissioners while urging them to recommend that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services adopt stringent rules on medical spending for health insurance companies. The consumer groups demanded that health insurance companies accept tough rate-review and agree to a regulatory framework that benefits consumers, not the big health insurance companies. At the demonstration, HCAN partners demanded that health insurance companies drop their opposition to:
- A tough, transparent rate-review process that holds insurers accountable.
- A common-sense framework to ensure that the so-called medical-loss ratio measures only legitimate medical services and excludes unrelated corporate expenses.
- Regulations to ensure that people in “grandfathered” health plans will not see their rates increase and benefits shrink.
- Rules governing state insurance purchasing exchanges that will keep costs down, improve health outcomes, and maximize enrollment without abusing consumers.
- Requirements for insurance-company transparency and disclosure so consumers know how much of their premiums pay for lobbying, and what the lobbyists are advocating.
The demonstration included stories from people who will benefit from proper implementation of the new health care law. This action is part of a series of events in Western Washington highlighting consumer action against unchecked corporate power. Participants will ask elected officials to stand with consumers, not corporations. For more details and a list of events, please visit http://www.washingtoncan.org.
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