Health Care For America Now

Last month, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the front-group and main lobbying arm of the health insurance companies, held a conference in DC. Health Care for America Now brought in seven families who've had their lives turned upside-down by the insurance companies for the event. We rented a room in the hotel where AHIP was having the conference and sent an open letter to Karen Ignagni, AHIP's top lobbyist, to show up and listen to the stories of real Americans hurt by big insurance.

She didn't have the courage to show up.

Tomorrow, AHIP is having another, much bigger conference in Chicago. At the conference, attendees will learn how to try and kill or circumvent reform at such panels as "Framing the Health Reform Landscape: How Coverage Expansion Will Influence the Insurance Marketplace," and "Insurance Market Reforms: The New Role of Regulation." Karen Ignagni will be there, as will the executives of all the insurance companies in the country. We'll be there, too.

This time, we're bringing eight small business owners to confront Ignagni and the insurance companies. Each of these people, flying in from places such as Louisiana, Nebraska, and Indiana (plus a few from right here in Illinois), represents the engine of our economy. They create good jobs, they contribute positively to our society, and they try and provide themselves and their employees with good health care benefits, so everyone can be healthy and productive. Unfortunately, because of big insurance and their skyrocketing rates, these business owners are having to choose between keeping their businesses afloat or keeping people on their jobs and providing health care.

These business owners have sent another letter to Karen Igagni, requesting she take a moment out of her day to meet with them:

Our businesses are facing dire choices- between being able to reinvest profits into the future of our businesses and meeting the ever-growing costs of health care coverage; between denying our employees coverage for needed medical services and having to cut their jobs entirely.

…

Ms. Ignagni, we are not simply opportunities for profit. We are people trying to provide for our families, contribute to our local economies, and make ends meet in this recession, who believe you should look us in the eye, hear our stories, and understand what you are lobbying against.

We plan to be at the Renaissance Hotel at noon on Tuesday and hope to see you there. Please understand that we are not interested in discussing these issues with a representative or spokesperson. With our livelihoods on the line, we feel the least you could do is participate in this meeting personally.

With an economy working its way out of recession, with increasing unemployment, and with the credit crunch, the last thing small business in this country needs is to be put out of business by health care costs. But that's exactly what is happening. Put simply, big insurance greed kills jobs.

So, Karen Igagni, will you have the courage to show up and listen to the experiences real Americans are having with the industry you represent?

We'll find out tomorrow. I'm on the ground in Chicago, so stay tuned for live updates and photos from the event as it happens. If you're in the area, you should come out and stand in solidarity with us. And if you're not, sign the petition we'll deliver tomorrow, calling on the insurance industry to stop denying our care and using our premiums to lobby against reform.