HCAN vs. AHIP in Ohio - Full Transcript
07/23/08 | Comment (1)
For those who are interested, I've put together a full transcript of the video we released yesterday when we crashed AHIP's launch party in Columbus, OH:
Full transcript:
Kim: And her [Angela Braly, CEO of WellPoint] comment was, "We will never sacrifice profitability for membership." Membership of course is the people who get health care. How do you guys figure, and I guess Karen [Ignagni, CEO of AHIP] you're the health care insurance representative. How do you guys sit in this roundtable and have this discussion and this woman is making these type of comments? That makes no sense.
Moderator: Can we address you by name, please?
Kim: My name is Kimbetton (?), but you can address me by Kim, it's fine.
I just want to put that out there, and I want to put it out there not in a one on one conversation with you, but I thought this was a place for that to be asked in front of everybody. How do you justify that comment? When you talk about profitability, you guys have all these different rules and regulations on how not to pay out money! And you make profits off of that. And people are dying, people are sick, it's disgusting. And I'm sorry if I'm sitting here, I'm trying to be very very nice about it, and I didn't want to have a conversation with you one on one behind a closed door. This is something that should be addressed publicly.
Would you like to address or explain why Angela Braly would make such a comment?
And one thing also, would she sacrifice some of the $9 million that she made this year, would she sacrifice that?
[clapping]
Moderator: We do want to be, we understand the passions are very high here, and I respect that you're standing for the very people that are around this table, so I appreciate that. I also know that we told people we'd be out at 1, so I'm going to say, let's take that as our wrap question, let Karen answer that, and then we'll have some conclusions.
Karen: I have no problem with you asking the question, I have no problem with any questions that anybody wants to ask. And I think everybody in this room is entitled to ask questions in the public forum. That's just my approach to life. So I have no problem with you doing that at all.
I suspect that that is a part of a larger statement that was made, and I think it goes to the point that was made earlier here, that if you talk to a hospital, you talk to a doctor, you talk to any insurance - in the for profit industry or the not for profit industry - no margins, no mission. So the question is, are you able to be in the black rather than the red, to be able to do anything in our society, is very important. I don't know if you're speaking to that.
But your point about how health plans are operating, what we're trying to do here in Columbus and elsewhere, what we're trying to do is to send a message that we've gone through a two year process of taking a hard look at what we do, what's working, what's not, and bringing to a political arena some specific solutions. And we want to hear today, we've heard what's working and what's not working, and I'm going to be bringing back a lot of that information.
We don't have the idea that we have all the answers. We don't have the idea that we're the only folks who can be listened to in this dialogue. What we're hoping to do is to find, as I suspect we have in this community and elsewhere, a broader stakeholder dialogue about how we solve the problem. And it's gotta be a combination of...
I'm very struck by something Adam (?) said, and it goes to your point. You made the most effective and compelling statement for social responsibility that I've heard in decades. We have to be more oriented, we have to be a lot more oriented towards social responsibility, doing the right thing, getting everybody.
Kim: That's the point, we need prevention, not cure.
Other audience member: People get sick anyway.
Karen: Exactly. You're right about that. The question is, how can we have a conversation with the people who say in principle, we want to get everybody in, but when you ask them to pay for it, you know the numbers of people who actually want to actually contribute goes down. So it will depend on the next president to make this point that this is what we're asking, as Americans, to sign on to reform. To invest in solving this problem in this country. And it's going to take the participation of everybody around this table [unintelligible] health plans, health plan advocates, coming together, and really working, building up a group.
We did this in the context of children's health care. We can do it again in terms of the whole ball of wax. We are pledged to do that. We didn't do that in 1992, we didn't come with solutions. We came with concerns about what we were doing to health care. And we're happy to engage in a dialogue.
So I appreciate your question. I don't mind you asking it anytime you care to. You should ask it in a public forum, and you deserve an answer.
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There are some stunning statements in the above exchange, especially Karen Ignagni's statement about "no profit, no mission." nyceve over at DailyKos has some analysis:
There you have it. The U.S. healthcare system is about profit Murder By Spreadsheet. Every dollar of healthcare they deny goes right to the bottom line. Insurance companies are finely-tuned and dangerously sophisticated healthcare denial machines.
She's right. Between Angela Braly and Karen Ignagni, we've now had two top health care industry leaders confirming the industry isn't concerned about your health, only about their pockets.
It really doesn't get much clearer than this.
--Jason Rosenbaum, Health Care for America Now
