Washington, DC – With for-profit health insurers secretly spending millions to buy GOP support for anti-consumer legislation, activists demanded transparency and accountability at the companies’ annual shareholder meetings over the past week. Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the nation’s leading grassroots health care advocacy organization, coordinated the actions to expose the way that Wall-Street run companies are determined to undermine the Affordable Care Act (ACA), hurting millions of people already benefiting from the law. State partners and allies of HCAN protested at meetings of UnitedHealth Group Inc., Aetna Inc., Coventry Health Care, and WellPoint Inc.

“The insurance companies are slamming families and businesses with unaffordable premiums and higher out-of-pocket costs,” said HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome. “That’s why the insurers want to hide their efforts to use their customers’ premium dollars to undermine the consumer protections in the health care law. The insurance companies don’t want lawmakers or the public to know about their efforts to promote anti-consumer legislation and to roll back the ACA’s consumer protections.”

Insurance companies are members of a trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), that in 2009 secretly contributed at least $86 million for ads by third parties to oppose health care reform. The money was laundered through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which aired attack ads for months.

The insurers have resisted disclosure of political spending that would permit consumers and shareholders to understand their hidden role in the political process. The health insurance industry’s money-laundering scheme helped the Republicans win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010, and the insurers continue to bankroll the Republicans’ effort to buy Congress to advance their interests.

Here are the actions taken by HCAN partners and allies at shareholder meetings in the last week:

UnitedHealth, Las Vegas, May 23: Members and supporters of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada gathered outside the meeting at a company facility. Consumer proxy-holders were turned away by the company. Media access to the event was shut down, and UnitedHealth security refused to admit television crews at the gate. Reporters who tried to listen to the meeting via webcast, as is customary practice, were unable to access the program. The company promised to make a recording of the meeting available but still has not done so “due to technical difficulties.”

Aetna, Philadelphia, May 20: The protest was planned by the Health Care For America Now coalition and carried out by HCAN coalition members Action United, Philadelphia Unemployment Project, and Penn ACTION, and it focused on Aetna’s hypocrisy. As Aetna’s Executive Staff and Board of Directors fled the room, Action United member Alicia Dorsey took the floor and said, “We are here because for years Aetna has said it supports health care reform. Yet during that time, it has been funneling millions of dollars of secret contributions to the Chamber of Commerce, which ran ads against the ACA and members of Congress that supported it.” After the meeting, Marc Stier, Executive Director of Penn ACTION and Pennsylvania HCAN director, said the ads were deceptive. The protesters unfurled a golden parachute while denouncing the $76 million in stock proceeds and compensation collected from Aetna by recently retired CEO Ronald Williams.Philadelphia police detained three of the protesters for about 30 minutes before releasing them without charge.

Coventry Health Care, Tysons Corner, Va., May 19: Activists from Virginia Organizing, Health Care for America Now, Northern Virginia Labor Federation and the Virginia AFL-CIO were on hand inside and outside the shareholder meeting. Several consumer shareholders, including Paula Neustatter of Fredericksburg, held proxies to attend the meeting and speak in support of a shareholder proposal to disclose future monetary and non-monetary political contributions used to influence elections. Despite having the proper credentials, Virginia Organizing members Neustatter and Joe Katz were blocked by Coventry staff from speaking. When Neustatter attempted to speak during the comment period on a shareholder resolution calling for greater transparency in the company’s political donations, a Coventry employee took away the microphone.

WellPoint, Indianapolis, May 17: Shareholder Karen Green Stone, an Indiana health care activist, asked CEO Angela Braly why she was paid $13.4 million from rising customer premiums last year – equivalent to the salaries of 285 school teachers. “Braly, standing at a podium next to a digital clock meant to keep shareholder questions to less than two minutes, defended WellPoint’s compensation as in line with other companies, and vetted by the board, consultants and now the shareholders,” the Indianapolis Business Journal reported. “‘We consider it important to have competitive [pay] arrangements for the CEO and the named executive officers,’ she said.” Hoosiers for a Commonsense Plan held a rally nearby that included National Nurses United and the California Nurses Association.

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Health Care for America Now is a national grassroots coalition of more than 1,000 organizations in 46 states representing 30 million people. HCAN led the fight over the past two years to win passage of health reform and to keep Congress from being steamrolled by corporate special interests.

Here is a comment from Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now (HCAN), on the health insurance premium rate review rule announced today by the Department of Health and Human Services:

“The rate review rule puts health insurance companies on notice that slamming consumers and small businesses with unjustified, double-digit premium rate increases will not be tolerated. These regulations will help states shine a light on the data the insurance companies manipulate to justify unreasonable rate hike year after year.

“The days of insurance companies running roughshod over consumers and jacking up our rates whenever they want are over. The new rate review regulation represents a key step toward finally ending the insurance companies’ stranglehold on our health care.

“We encourage states to step up and aggressively scrutinize proposed rate hikes and provide consumers and businesses much needed relief from price gouging.

“The Affordable Care Act is already reducing rates around the country. In Connecticut, the new health law prompted Aetna to voluntarily roll back rates by an average of 10% for some customers, demonstrating that the law is a powerful tool to hold the industry accountable and give rate relief to hard-pressed families and businesses. In California, state regulators have successfully challenged unreasonable premium increases, yielding huge savings for consumers and small businesses.

“These rules come at a crucial time. From 1999 to 2009, health insurance companies raised premiums a staggering 131 percent – three times the growth of wages and four times the rate of overall inflation. Last week the New York Times reported that the health insurance industry this year is enjoying record earnings while millions of Americans get less medical care. The for-profit health insurance has delivered a phenomenal 16.1% return on equity as of today. By that measure, health insurers are ranked fourth highest of the 16 industries in the health care sector. They deliver a higher return for investors than cell phone companies, beer companies, mortgage companies, life insurance companies, TV broadcasters, drug store companies or grocery stores.”

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Health Care for America Now is a national grassroots coalition of more than 1,000 organizations in 46 states representing 30 million people. HCAN led the fight over the past two years to win passage of health reform and to keep Congress from being steamrolled by corporate special interests.

By Ethan Rome - Executive Director, Health Care for America Now

The health insurance industry's mouthpiece doesn't want the rest of us to know what Wall Street knows well — the record-breaking profits of the health insurance companies are, in fact, excessive.

In response to astonishingly high first-quarter profit reports from health insurance companies, the industry trade group America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), claims it is among the least profitable health care industries. AHIP says the health insurance industry profit margin is only 4.4%, and that this "low margin" represents less than one penny out of every dollar spent on all health care in the U.S. These are simplistic and misleading statistics.

Last week the New York Times reported that the health insurance industry is enjoying record earnings while millions of Americans get less medical care. Wall Street investors are delighted with the industry's profits, and to health insurance executives, that's all that counts. Insurance CEOs want investors to buy their stock and keep share prices marching higher, and that's exactly what has happened. To achieve excessive profits, insurers are happy to gouge consumers and small businesses, do little to rein in medical costs and spend billions of our premium dollars on lobbying, secret political activities, bloated executive pay and stock buybacks.

AHIP's focus on profit margins is misleading and designed to protect their massive income by shifting attention away from their return on equity — a key measure of profits as a percentage of the amount invested. That return is a phenomenal 16.1% as of today. By that measure, health insurers are ranked fourth highest of the 16 industries in the health care sector. They also deliver a higher return for investors than cellphone companies, beer companies, mortgage companies, life insurance companies, TV broadcasters, drug store companies or grocery stores.

AHIP likes to talk about how insurance profits are a small share of national health spending — less then one penny of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. — but that is an absurd, deceptive and self-serving statistic. Yet even their own chart of this data shows that the share of the health care economy sucked up by health insurance profits has more than tripled over the past decade.

One penny of the health care dollar is worth $347 billion over 10 years ending in 2019. That one penny would pay for more than one-third of the entire cost of the health reform program.

In response to a memo that Health Care for America Now (HCAN) sent to news outlets yesterday, AHIP attacked HCAN for pointing out the insurance industry's misleading use of statistics. Yet AHIP did not challenge the validity of HCAN's critique. That makes sense, because they are wrong on this issue.

The health insurance industry is also wrong to oppose the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by bankrolling the Republican repeal effort. The ACA expands coverage, ends the worst insurance company abuses, reduces health care costs, and reduces the federal deficit while building on the private insurance system.

The Republicans' relentless opposition to the law is a naked appeal to their extreme right-wing base and an attack on people already benefiting from it — millions of seniors, children, young adults, families and small businesses. It's time for AHIP to turn away from Republican politics and vigorously support implementation of the law.

By Ethan Rome - Executive Director, Health Care for America Now

The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., will hear arguments Tuesday on contradictory rulings by two Virginia federal judges on attempts to invalidate the new health care law's requirement that everyone who can afford private insurance must buy it.

The encouraging news for those of us who support the law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), is that the results so far are good: of the 31 lawsuits challenging the ACA in federal courts, only two judges have ruled against part or all of the law. Most of the other cases have been dismissed or are still wending their way through the lower courts. Of the five judges who have ruled on the merits, three have upheld the law.

In one of the Virginia cases, U.S. District Judge Norman Moon ruled that the individual responsibility provision, also known as the individual mandate, is a proper exercise of congressional authority under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

Judge Moon is right: Congress clearly has the authority to regulate the health insurance market, including protecting consumers from insurance industry abuses and reducing costs for families, seniors and businesses. The best way to protect consumers and control costs is to make sure everyone has affordable health insurance, and that's what the ACA does.

As all the legal challenges wind through the courts, there have been several significant developments that provide important context for the litigation:

• Most states are proceeding at a good pace with implementation - including many of the 26 listed as plaintiffs in the Florida legal challenge now on appeal in the 11th Circuit. Virginia itself passed a law, signed by its Republican governor, declaring its intent to create a state exchange.

• The ACA is already making a huge difference in the lives of millions of Americans. For example, 600,000 young adults now have insurance thanks to the ACA requirement that they be allowed to enroll in their parents' workplace health plans. People now have zero co-pays for preventive services, children can no longer be rejected by insurers because of pre-existing conditions, and insurers must end lifetime limits on care. Seniors in the Medicare "donut hole" have discounts on prescription drugs, and 4 million of them received $250 checks last year. Small businesses are receiving job-creating tax credits for providing workplace coverage, and now more small businesses are offering coverage despite the slow economy.

• Contrary to their "repeal and replace" promise on the campaign trail, Republicans have failed to offer a replacement health care proposal of any kind. Instead they've obsessively worked to repeal and defund the ACA, a project that appears to have stalled out. Just last week GOP leaders threw up their hands and acknowledged the futility of their efforts.

• The Republicans spearheading the political and legal attacks on the law have demonstrated mind-blowing hypocrisy on the individual responsibility provision. While they've excoriated the mandate - and argued again and again that it violates the constitutional rights of every American - they've embraced a mandate in their Medicare privatization scheme, which the Republicans in the House voted for last month as part of their 2012 budget. The Republican plan ends Medicare as we know it and would devastate America's seniors and families. Ironically, it also requires that seniors buy private insurance in a way that's nearly identical to the insurance requirement in the ACA (although that's where the similarity to the ACA begins and ends).

The ACA lawsuits are part of a serious attack on the people who are benefiting from the law - millions of seniors, children, young people and families. The politicians who want to overturn the law can yammer on about the Constitution, but what they can't do is explain how taking away important protections and benefits is good for actual people.

We are confident the law will ultimately be upheld. The U.S. Supreme Court will have the final say, and it has corrected lower-court mistakes when the nation has enacted other historic laws like Social Security, the minimum wage law and the Voting Rights Act.

We also believe the American people will not allow the courts or the Congress to return us to the time when insurance companies could exclude people because of pre-existing conditions, drop people for getting sick, jack up rates when they please or let benefit caps force people with serious diseases into bankruptcy.

The two cases being heard Tuesday, just like the Florida challenge, are driven by partisan politics. The Republicans' obsessive efforts to repeal and defund the ACA reveal that this litigation is really about the Republican Party protecting health insurer profits at the expense of working and middle-class families - and about giving our health care back to the insurance companies.

By, Ethan Rome - Executive Director, Health Care for America Now

If the Republicans have their way and privatize Medicare, it will put millions of seniors at the mercy of health insurance companies and force them to pay $39 trillion more for Medicare coverage than they would under existing law, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). That's why this is a massive windfall for insurers. The GOP budget plan will also shift trillions of dollars in costs onto America's seniors and families. When the program begins, new Medicare enrollees would have to pay at least $6,400 more each year out-of-pocket for private coverage equivalent to current Medicare benefits. And the average Medicare beneficiary's contribution to the cost of Medicare benefits would skyrocket from 25 percent under the existing system to an astonishing 68 percent in 2030, according to CEPR and the Congressional Budget Office.

The Republican plan will enrich insurance companies at the expense of consumers and actually increase the overall net cost of health care by $34 trillion over the next 75 years, the planning period Medicare trustees are required to use. The increased costs are because of the private health insurance industry's excessive profits, obscene CEO salaries and the costs of the bureaucracy it creates to deny care to consumers. These private plan administrative costs often eat up 20 or even 30 cents of every insurance premium dollar compared to Medicare's roughly 3 cents. And in the past few weeks it's become clear that the industry's profits keep going up as consumers are being crushed by ever-rising co-payments and deductibles.

The sheer waste of Medicare privatization is truly staggering. According to an eye-opening report by CEPR's David Rosnick and Dean Baker, the Republican plan will ultimately force seniors to pay $39 trillion more for health care through 2084 than if Medicare were left alone. That's equal to a tax of about $110,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

What we ought to do is increase our efforts to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse instead of impoverishing seniors, wasting massive amounts of taxpayer funds and giving the insurance companies control of seniors' health care. That's what the Affordable Care Act does, along with other Medicare reforms within President Obama's deficit reduction proposal.

The Republican plan, drawn by Budget Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, picks winners and losers in a big way. The winners are big corporations, like the insurance companies and their Washington lobbyists who spend millions to maintain a stranglehold on health care and the Republicans in Congress. The losers are America's working and middle-class families.

The Republicans also give massive tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires like the Koch brothers. To pay for this, they make savage cuts to Medicaid that will destroy the economic security of 60 million people - seniors, people with disabilities, poor families and children. They eliminate Medicare as we know it, and make deep cuts to dozens of programs of services that support America's families, from Head Start to Pell grants that help kids go to college.

Eliminating Medicare, giving seniors vouchers designed to lag far behind actual health care costs, and handing seniors' health care to the insurance companies is just plain wrong. Significantly increasing overall health care costs, as the Republican plan will do, is also wrong.

The Medicare privatization plan is part of the GOP's larger attack on our country's shrinking middle class and the promise of the American Dream: that if you work hard you can expect to have a good job with good wages and benefits, to provide a better life for your children, and to retire with dignity.