While the tumultuous battle to pass health care reform raged on from summer to fall last year, major health insurers were quietly funneling money to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to fund TV ads aimed at squashing or significantly changing major health reform bills passing through Congress.
This according to a new report from Under the Influence, which claims that Aetna, Cigna, Humana, Kaiser Foundation Health Plans, UnitedHealth Group and Wellpoint–under the umbrella America’s Health Insurance Plans–each kicked in at least $1 million plus donations to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to help underwrite spots created by two business coalitions that are subsidized by the Chamber.
The Chamber, which has spent $70-100M on the anti-healthcare reform ad efforts according to the report, is also one of those groups seeking a Supreme Court ruling to allow more corporate entities and such to actively participate in campaign finance.
The actions taken by the AHIP, which Under the Influence says was donating money even as it was publicly claiming to support healthcare reform, has drawn the ire of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
In a statement, she says:
These big insurance companies appear to have gotten caught secretly bankrolling the effort to kill health insurance reform for millions of Americans, despite their disingenuous claims of support for the legislation. This duplicity is not surprising coming from an industry that has used every method to try to kill health insurance reform that would save lives, save money, save jobs, and save Medicare.
“The insurance industry has spent millions of dollars on the wrong side of history–standing in the way of progress for our workers, families, and businesses, by secretly funding a campaign to maintain a health insurance system of high costs, limited access, and arbitrary cut-offs for American consumers.”
Pelosi adds, “…Americans should judge these deceptive ads for what they are–now that they know who has been paying the tab.”
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