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CIGNA Admits to Secret Funding for Anti-Health Care Reform Ads
Back in January, as the fight over health care reform was in high gear, the National Journal pinned down what most of us suspected all the time: The nation’s biggest health insurers had been funneling money—about $20 million—quietly to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to air lie-filled, scare-mongering ads about health care reform.
That revelation flew in the face of the insurance industry’s claim that it really supported health care reform, but they were just dickering over the details. While the facts about the secret funds were on the record and not disputed, the big insurers didn’t address the issue.
That is, until Wednesday, when representatives from Health Care for America Now (HCAN) at CIGNA’s annual shareholder meeting in Philadelphia got a confession out of CIGNA CEO David Cordani. The HCAN members were admitted to the meeting in an arrangement with several shareholders and so could question Cordani.
Marc Stier, Pennsylvania state director of HCAN, said Cordani confirmed the company contributed secret funds over the past year to the industry trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), and to the Chamber to wage a duplicitous anti-reform campaign while industry lobbyists were professing to support reform. But Cordani would not say how much CIGNA slipped to the Chamber for the propaganda blitz. Said Stier after the meeting:
Today, for the first time, CIGNA admitted to making secret payments to the Chamber. They won’t tell even their own stockholders how much money they sent through the Chamber, but there is now no question they did so.
Who knows why he “fessed up,” but they say confession is good for the soul. Maybe he was trying to salvage a little bit of CIGNA’s rep for dumping customers who file expensive claims, a practice known as “purging.” According to HCAN, Cordani told shareholders CIGNA will continue the practice.
Salvation may be a ways away.
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11 Comments
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And this is surprising how? Wendell Potter blew the whistle on these folks long ago. For-profit health care delivers profits first, health care second. If health care gets in the way of profits, then get rid of the troublesome parts of the care. Bottom line: CIGNA is not in business to care for people. They’re in business to make a profit.
Employer-based, fee for service medicine will not work. The recent legislation is a stop-gap measure. And for-profit health care insurance companies must be regulated as any utility should be regulated. That CIGNA has been feckless in its approach to “reform” should shock absolutely no one.
We all tried to kill the bill.
It has no tort reform
Fraud will not be reduced
People in the know will make millions on stock trades.
Millions of people will still be left without health care.
Poor people will have to pay for health insurance. They should get FREE care.
Children of illegal aliens will get no health care. (Stray animals get better care)
We still need health care reform!!
Don’t be fooled by this cr*p about “tort reform.” People ought to be able to be compensated when they are wronged. Interestingly, in those states that have “reformed” their tort laws, increases in premiums were no different than in states that had no “reform.” Also, you would think doctors would cut their prices if we got “reform,” right? Not a chance.
Interestingly, in our state, the bulk of the malpractice claims were filed against a tiny percentage of incompetent docs.. the doctors refuse to discipline their own.
Does this surprise anyone? It certainly didn’t surprise me.
That was what the whole fight was about, wasn’t it. Too bad we didn’t get single payer where we could have made them spend 100 million dollars or more and fixed Americas health care problems for good.
ISN’T THAT FUNNY!!!
Wasn’t HCAN the front for the DNC/Obama’s ploy of a ‘public option’??
FUNNY that they should be allowed in to ask questions now, when Single Payer wasn’t allowed to the table.
FUNNY, but isn’t HCAN the ones now promoting Obama/DNC ‘historic’ health care reform on their web site?
http://healthcareforamericanow.org/
FUNNY, but I’d put HCAN right in there with all the other bad bpys in colluding to keep us from getting real reform.
We must continue the fight for the Public Option, or as it should be called “Universal Health Care.” Every citizen in this country should have the basic right to heath care – period!
Why am I not surprised?
Obama and Bush were cut from a similar piece of cloth. There is no FDR on the horizon. I suggested that they tax Job Outsourcing Corporations Union scale + 15% and use the money to attach everyone to Medicare, and to end the war, bring home the troops and use the $1 million a day to support each soldier and instead give $25,000 to each citizen with a net worth of under $1.25 million. They would spend or invest that cash and jump start the economy. I would also mandate R-30 Insulation in walls and R-50 ceilings in new and remodeling construction, geothermal HVAC with grants to cover differential costs, putting more workers back in circulation and pumping the economy.
And this surprised who????????
Everyone should have know if they had looked at the U. s. Chamber of Commerce.
C-SPAN
Washington Journal
April 30, 2010
Edward Luce, Financial Times, Washington Bureau Chief
I think I would, controversially, and these are my
personal opinions, not the opinions of the Financial
Times, necessarily; but you mentioned single payer. I
think if we could transcend the political realities for
a moment… in terms purely alone of American
competitiveness, forget the moral argument, forget the
social justice case for universal access to public
health care, but just in terms of putting a lid on the
galloping costs in the American economy, the
disincentive to creating a new manufacturing job here
for example, as opposed to in China, or Canada for that
matter, I would have a single payer system. A single
payer system would be able to negotiate like a
monopsony, which is the buyer side of a monopoly, and
to reduce drug prices which is one of the biggest
contributors to health care inflation in America. It
would be able to do all sorts of things to drive health
care costs down, and that would help begin to solve
America’s fiscal problem.