America’s Health Insurance Plans CEO Karen Ignagni ask how Congress and the health care industry will address issues of fiscal responsibility and fairness if Congress requires people to buy health insurance coverage.
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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.”
AHIP, America’s Health Insurance Plans, held a conference call today to discuss their census results. Calling themselves the “voice of America’s health insurers,” their mission is as follows. “AHIP is the national association representing nearly 1,300 member companies providing health insurance coverage to more than 200 million Americans.” This conference call clip discusses the January 2008 census they conducted. (1:28)
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.
