Sebelius To Lion's Den: Plans To Address Insurers

Kathleen Sebelius plans to take the administration's argument for health care reform straight to the enemy this week. In a letter to top insurance lobbyist Karen Ignagni, Sebelius asks to address the annual gathering of America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) on Thursday at 10:30 a.m.

Sebelius, the Health and Human Services Secretary, reminds Ignagni that she had previously invited her to speak and notes that insurers have been rapidly raising premiums, making particular note of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Virginia.

AHIP has already been targeted by protesters associated with the pro-reform coalition Health Care for America Now, as well as MoveOn.org. The convention is being held at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, DC.

Read the letter here.

The annual gathering comes as House and Senate leaders are putting the finishing touches on a strategy to pass a final health care bill using a majority-vote maneuver known as reconciliation.

Comments

[meko]

11:52 AM on 03/10/2010

What happened to drug price negotiation, a central provider reimbursement negotiator, standardizing the basic insurance package, and honest discussion of single payer?

All of these would have done more to cut costs than anything in the President's plan and they wouldn't have entrenched the power of insurers the way mandates do.

If insurance companies are so evil, why force me to buy their product?

And I don't believe the HHS will do anything to control insurers during the next Republican White House, nor do I expect much to be done under this one. It's not as if the Treasury and the Fed have done much to protect small investors on Wall Street.

More than anything this is about giving insurers new forced customers to replace all the Baby Boomers they're going to lose to Medicare.

[nogimmicks]

11:28 AM on 03/10/2010

Finally.. Long overdue. Bug Kathleen, please remember that the insurance companies are just one leg of the four legged monster devouring Americans' wealth and health, the other three being lawyers, corporate hospitals/doctors, and big pharma. All four legs must be addressed at the same time.

[RobRob]

08:36 AM on 03/10/2010

This old broad won't be around much longer once the death panels kick in.

[hwhtgr]

10:45 PM on 03/09/2010

"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy. Furthermore, we believe that health care reform, again I said at the beginning of my remarks, that we sent the three pillars that the President’s economic stabilization and job creation initiatives were education and innovation—innovation begins in the classroom—clean energy and climate, addressing the climate issues in an innovative way to keep us number one and competitive in the world with the new technology, and the third, first among equals I may say, is health care, health insurance reform." - Nancy Pelosi

Any lib care to explain this....

[meko]

11:53 AM on 03/10/2010

The far left doesn't support this bill. It's only the neo-liberals that have been bought off by insurers who want mandates so they will have forced healthy young consumers to replace all the Baby Boomers who are leaving them for Medicare.

[assumetheopposite]

05:43 PM on 03/20/2010

As a member of the far left, this is true. Because I make less than $15K a year, if I am forced to buy a private health insurance plan, I will have to abandon what meager employment I have and move back with my parents in another state.

[daveanders]

10:22 PM on 03/09/2010

i fukcked that guy in the picture's ashole. he's a good leigh..

[Jack Haesly]

09:41 PM on 03/09/2010

If a single payer non-profit health care system is not passed in this country this year, both Sebelis and Obama should be impeached. American citizen's health care is too important to leave to the corrupt health insurance companies. They have already proven what they are about...which is corruption, greed and usery.
If a single pay, no-profit system is good enough for Germany, England, France, Canada, and even Taiwan, it should be good enough for America. I might add, France has the best health care system in the world and France is not a socialist country.

[assumetheopposite]

05:45 PM on 03/20/2010

All of the countries that have had single payer systems for years or decades also have much better health than we do. The so-called death panels are the doctors themselves and the sycophantic insurance companies who have been deciding who lives and who dies for decades. Single payer will GET RID of these death panels!

[jerryatthebeach]

08:33 PM on 03/09/2010

I guess they can have a bidding war for government contracts. The insurance companies have more money than God. Do you remember your parents, they made their payments every month and never even made a claim.

[Billl]

08:33 PM on 03/09/2010

Think Big

Eliminate insurance by using sales taxes for the Public Option.

Proven systems for Free Public Option care and a 2nd alternative for continuing existing Private Systems would allow these two options to serve the entire country by year end 2010.

All 300 million people in the US could receive Free Public Option health care, delivered from government VA system styled hospitals, paid for with sales tax revenues instead of insurance premiums, and it would save $1trillion dollars every year from the $2.6trillion spent last year.

Sales tax funded care woud be free to everyone choosing to use the Public Option with no restrictions.

Americas Veterans Administration is now the largest, lowest cost, best outcome producing at any cost, health care delivery system in the US it uses the world’s best medical software, and it has been controlling the problems with access, cost, quality, and malpractice for years.

Veterans Government Health Care is producing better health outcomes for Vets than civilian patients are receiving anywhere else in the country, at any price, including Mayo, Cleveland Clinic, Medicare, anywhere and VA’s costs are a fraction of private care’s.

Between 1995 and 2004, the cumulative increase in the VA’s cost per enrollee was just 0.8 percent, while Medicare was a whopping 40.4 percent.

The VA’s successes could be used to create a Public Option government health care system that could deliver high quality care at drastically lower costs.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0501.longman.html

[Clevelandinwi]

07:31 PM on 03/09/2010

The 'insurance' industry? Insuring what?

[tbone99]

08:56 PM on 03/09/2010

their industry

[wrabbitt]

07:20 PM on 03/09/2010

I am really surprised that its not a junket to Hawaii, or the Cayman Islands where they hide their money.

[floodberg]

07:16 PM on 03/09/2010

Everyone one has been arguing so hard that we forgot to take a good look at Sebelius, who is representing Americans for health care with our noble, poor health insurors. (courtesy of Wikipedia): WARNING: ANY PERSONS WITH HEART PROBLEMS SHOULD NOT READ FURTHER.

Her bio: Daddy was Governor of Ohio. Has bachelors in poly sci, Masters in Public Administration. Moved to Kansas, was representative in Kansas legislature (8 years), then elected INSURANCE COMMISSIONER (8 years), Governor (4 years), became Secretary of Health and Human Services. Husband is son of a representative himself, and is (for real) a federal judge. I've omitted comments about her homes (plural), etc., but you are welcome to read for yourself.

This is his representative for change to the insurance companies? Looks more like a peace offering to them. Seems to me this is a sign that Obama and our noble congress are on the same page.

[toltec998]

07:47 PM on 03/09/2010

Would replacing here with an unconnected, uneducated homeless person do? She's qualified, can we move on now. It is about time team Obama stepped into the lions den and got a bit bloody.

[emcd]

08:14 PM on 03/09/2010

And you're wrong again here! And other spots you've posted this deception? If only we had someone on the national scale doing this we'd be better off:

As Insurance Commissioner for Kansas from 1994 to 2002, Sebelius refused to accept contributions from the insurance industry and blocked a merger between Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas and Anthem, an Indiana insurer. The merger “drew opposition from many Kansas doctors, hospitals and nurses, as well as an advocacy group for poor and working-class families” and would have increased premiums “by $248 million over fiver years.” [Associated Press, 6/11/02] Sebelius, however, “turned the office of the Insurance Commissioner into an activist regulator, pursuing HMOs who denied care and pushing for cheaper prescription drugs for seniors.”
Sebelius continued to promote health care reform in the governor’s office, focusing primarily on cost containment. To improve efficiency, Sebelius ordered that all of the state’s major health care programs, including Medicaid, be “streamlined into a new business division called the Kansas Health Policy Authority” and launched the HealthyKansas initiative to promote prevention and wellness initiatives.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/02/19/sebelius-hhs/

[meko]

09:04 PM on 03/09/2010

and the next official to hold her job?

Because regulations don't mean much when there is no way to make sure they'll be enforced by the next guy.

Mandates are forever. Consumer protections come and go with each new president.

[peacebro]

06:52 PM on 03/09/2010

Ritz-Carlton? Should have been Motel 6.

[csuciadams]

06:27 PM on 03/09/2010

"To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day." - Theodore Roosevelt on why he started the Bull and Moose Party

Join the Third Party Revolution
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=372343910762

[floodberg]

06:45 PM on 03/09/2010

I knew Teddy Roosevelt, and Obama is no TR.

[Clevelandinwi]

07:32 PM on 03/09/2010

Not yet!

[therealist2000]

06:21 PM on 03/09/2010

The Department of Health has been captured by corporations. Without protests in front of insurance companies and drug companies, this government agency is a sellout agency and will not do anything serious. Don't Hold Your Breath for the Dept. of Health will come to your rescue!

[Shouterguy]

06:18 PM on 03/09/2010

Nice to see some street action FOR health care. We need to keep it up. Here in Oregon it got rather feisty. We need feisty!

[Rudderman]

06:22 PM on 03/09/2010

Yup. Especially from Obama and the rest of the Dems.

[therealist2000]

06:29 PM on 03/09/2010

Taking it to the Streets, esp. in front of Corporate America's front offices is the only way to go and break the grip of Corporate America on legislation. Take It to the STREETS!

[tbone99]

08:59 PM on 03/09/2010

Thats right . demand insurance companies let the government force us to pay them.

ignore the fact hat they have revoked us, denied, disabled us and defrauded us ... we want more abuse!