Once Again, They're Not Really Listening
Posted on August 22nd, 2008 by Jason Rosenbaum in Profits Before People
 |
The health insurance industry, represented by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), is on a "listening tour" to convince America they aren't really putting profits before people and practicing murder by spreadsheet.
At the last stop on their "listening tour," no advance notice was given, proving that they are not really interested in listening. This time, the health insurance industry gave the public a weekend's notice to get to their "listening tour," further proof that they're not really listening. And their tour this time is totally online, allowing them to pick and choose questions they answer.
The email they sent out today at 12:39 pm is:
Next Stop: Denver, CO
Join us for a health care solutions chat live from the Democratic National Convention.
The Campaign for An American Solution comes to Denver for the Democratic National Convention and invites you to participate in an online forum with Karen Ignagni, President and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans. We will be answering as many of your questions as we can about health care in America and how we can work together to fix it.
We invite you to visit our website and submit your health care questions during our online forum. We will take all of your questions and do our best to answer as many as we can in the allotted time.
Date: Monday, August 25th, 2008
Time: 12:30-1:15pm MST (11:30am PST and 2:30pm EST)
Place: www.americanhealthsolution.org
We challenge AHIP the health insurance industry to stop playing games with the American people. If they actually want to hear about the health care crisis in America, they should give regular folks advance notice of their events and to do them in person, in public. AHIP should publish the rest of the dates, times, and locations on their "Campaign for an American Solution Listening Tour."
To do anything less is to admit the insurance industry isn't interested in listening to dissenting views, even if those views come from the American public.
(And if you're in Denver, head down to the event if you can and give the industry a piece of your mind!)
So why do you keep advocating for a reform that gives them a seat at the table and leaves insurers in the health care delivery equation. Let's ban the buggers and be done it!
Of course us Single Payer folks would suggest that this is further evidence that the solution does NOT involve keeping the for-profit (we call it care; they call it medical loss ratio) private health insurance companies in the loop business and even being mandated and subsidized.
Alas. Our AHIP friends have many of the right critiques of AHIP, but fail to come to the correct (and obvious) conclusion.