After Raising Premiums Four Times Faster than Wages Health Insurers Release New Report Fight Reform
After Raising Premiums Four Times Faster than Wages, Did the Health Insurance Industry Actually Just Claim Health Insurance Reform Efforts Will “Increase Premiums?” Yes. Yes, they did.
Americans United for Change: “If you think the health insurance industry is concerned at all about premiums going up, Bernie Madoff probably has a golden investment opportunity for you.”
Washington D.C. – Americans United for Change Acting Executive Director Tom McMahon issued the following statement in response to a laughable new report by the health insurance industry that attacks health insurance reform efforts, claiming they will “increase private health insurance premiums.”
“If you think the insurance industry is concerned at all about premiums going up, Bernie Madoff probably has a golden investment opportunity for you. No one should be surprised that at the 11th hour, the private health insurance industry has pulled out all the stops to block health insurance reform. But after raising premiums four times faster than wages in the last decade, for the health insurance industry to attack health insurance reform claiming of all things it will “raise premiums” – now that’s just laughable. It’s interesting that the insurance industry didn’t make a peep about skyrocketing premiums until the Finance Committee added a cap on insurance CEO pay.
“The bottom line is that the insurance industry wants to kill health insurance reform so they can continue to be free to exclude people with pre-existing conditions, free to rescind policies when people get sick, free to use their exemption from the anti-trust laws to monopolize markets, free to continue increasing profits for Wall Street -- and free to give their CEO’s tens of millions in compensation. And they certainly don’t want to be forced to compete with a public health insurance option. The only surprise in the insurance lobby’s last minute assault on health insurance reform is its jaw dropping brazenness.”
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