Dear Friend,
It's déjà vu.
The same folks who successfully derailed health care reform last time around are once again up to no good.
This week the powerful political interest group that represents private insurance companies, American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), began touting a widely discredited report claiming premiums will soar if Congress dares to pass meaningful health care reform.
It's a self-serving, untrue, desperate effort by the insurance industry to protect its excessive profits -- and one that cannot be taken seriously.
Tell AHIP lobbyists to retract their misleading, fear-mongering statement aimed at derailing reform -- and remove it from their web site immediately.
Even the accounting firm that helped prepare the report has now backed away from AHIP's erroneous claims that health care reform would cause insurance premiums to more than double over the next decade.
It turns out the report cherry-picked just four provisions of one particular bill and failed to take many crucial cost-cutting measures into account.
In reality, independent research groups project premiums will double over the next decade unless Congress enacts meaningful health care reform. If Congress does nothing, families will wind up paying an additional $3,700 in premiums each year by 2020.
Tell AHIP lobbyists: American families know the insurance industry is gouging them, and we will not be fooled by empty threats aimed at derailing reform.
AHIP is a bad faith actor in the health care debate.
AHIP lobbyists say they support reform and universal coverage, but in reality they are working hard to kill every meaningful cost-cutting, choice-expanding provision -- including the public option.
They are funded by insurance companies like Aetna, whose CEO continues to assure shareholders that "profitability" is paramount to covering more Americans.
And they have been discredited by those familiar with the industry, like former Cigna Vice President Wendell Potter who's called AHIP's tactics "duplicitous."
Tell AHIP lobbyists American families and businesses will not let them derail meaningful health care reform this time around.
Last month President Obama told Congress and the nation, "I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last."
But as the full Senate prepares to vote on health care reform in the coming weeks, the insurance lobby is launching a last-ditch effort to preserve the status quo.
It's time for Coloradans to call them out on their disingenuous scare tactics. Thank you for taking action today.
Sincerely,
Bill Ritter, Jr.
Governor
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