AUFC Targets Insurance Giants Cigna, Blue Cross/Blue Shield on Facebook with New Web Video Monopoly
Americans United for Change Targets Insurance Giants Cigna, Blue Cross/Blue Shield on Facebook with New Web Video “Monopoly”
Effort Launched as AUFC Ally Center for American Progress Releases New Report:
“Unlocking Competition: The Need to Eliminate the Antitrust Exemption for Health Insurers”
…and on the same day Aetna, the third-largest U.S. health insurer, announced its profits have soared 18% after once again raising premiums
Washington D.C. – Americans United for Change released a new web video today called ‘Monopoly’ using the classic board game itself to symbolize the rigged game the health insurance industry plays every day by exploiting its exemption from anti-trust laws to crowd out any real competition and gouge American consumers. See script below.
The video is the centerpiece of a Facebook advertising campaign aimed at self-identified Democrats and independents,encouraging viewers to sign a petition calling on Congress to pass health insurance reform that ends the anti-trust exemption for the health insurance industry and creates real competition by giving consumers a public health insurance option. In addition, the ads will also be viewed by self-identified employees of insurance giants Cigna and Blue Cross/Blue Shield, sending a message to their CEO’s that their days of maximizing profits by playing games with our lives are coming to an end.
In conjunction with the release of the new web video, AUFC ally the Center for American Progress released a new report today on how the lack of competition has led to supracompetitive profits, an escalating number of uninsured, an epidemic of deceptive and fraudulent conduct, and rapidly escalating costs. “Unlocking Competition: The Need to Eliminate the Antitrust Exemption for Health Insurers” details why the federal government needs to eliminate the antitrust exemption for health insurers. Download it here: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/10/unlocking_competition.html
As another recent report from Health Care for America Now noted: “The American Medical Association reports that 94 percent of insurance markets in the United States are now highly concentrated. Shrinking competition among health insurance companies is a major cause of these spiraling costs. In the past 13 years more than 400 corporate mergers have involved health insurers, and a small number of companies now dominate local markets…Contrary to industry assertions, these mergers have undermined market efficiency; premiums have skyrocketed, increasing more than 87 percent, on average, over the past six years.”
Tom McMahon, Acting Executive Director, Americans United for Change: “We are keeping a harsh, unyielding light shining on the health insurance industry and its baffling exemption from anti-trust laws – an exemption they have exploited for decades by excluding millions of people with pre-existing conditions, rescinding policies when people get sick, and jacking up premiums four times faster than wages for everyone else. The American people aren’t just sick of playing this game – many are dying. We applaud the health insurance reform proposal put forward today by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that moves to repeal the insurance industry’s outrageous anti-trust exemption and establish a public health insurance option – both major steps toward creating real competition in the insurance market place and ensuring all Americans access to quality, affordable health care.”
‘Monopoly’ follows the similarly themed TV spot AUFC aired earlier this month spotlighting the health insurance industry’s anti-trust exemption and a radio spot that aired in Nevada last week cheering Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on as he leads the charge to repeal the exemption and pass health insurance reform including a public option.