Be Skeptical!

For-profit Health Insurance Lobby (AHIP) seeks to Protect Profits by convincing you they can solve nation's health care crisis!

Big insurance promised in 1993 that they could solve the problem, but they only made the nation's problems worse with skyrocketing premiums and rising numbers of uninsured.

REALITY CHECK:  $1,000 per year of the premiums paid to for-profit United Healthcare to insure a Rhode Island family of four goes to profits not healthcare!

Across the nation, American's are voicing deep skeptisim about AHIP's launch of a counter-campaign to real healthcare reform.

The last time the nation debated health-care reform in 1993, insurers shot down the reform plan led by then-first lady Hillary Clinton, using such expensive tactics as their "Harry and Louise" ads.  And so, skeptism of AHIP's counter-campaign to Health Care for America Now is warranted.  The practices of big insurance that put profits before people mean every-day Americans are denied coverage, and even those with coverage can't get the care they need because of claims denial practices and other schemes to avoid payouts for needed health care.

Big insurance promised in 1993 that they could solve the problem, but they only made the nation's problems worse.   Today premiums continue to skyrocket and even more Americans lack the coverage they need to stay healthy. Big insurance failed because they put billion dollar profits and huge CEO mult-million dollar compensation before the health and wellbeing of Americans.

It's time for American's to take control of our health care system and say NO to insurance company rules that continue to put profit before people!

At a special invitation listening session in Ohio, physicians questioned the insurance organization's motives.  "We can't help but wonder where the industry has been for the past 20 years," said Warren F. Muth, president of the Ohio State Medical Association. "While physicians and patients have been struggling to maintain access to quality care, health plans have focused on protecting their profits. Are they as serious about reform as they say they are? Only time will tell."

Here in New England, UnitedHealthcare of New England's profits climbed by double digits between 2004 and 2007 even as its membership declined as documented in the report, “Insuring Health or Ensuring Profit?” by the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations. The report shows how the insurance industry's skyrocketing profits are being skimmed from health insurance premiums paid by consumers.  In fact, $1,000 per year paid to United in premiums to cover a Rhode Island family of four goes to profit, not healthcare!

There is a huge divide between the insurance companies' plan for healthcare reform and the need to take profit out of healthcare to make sure every American gets quality coverage at an affordable price.