About 50,000 insurance company employees have made phone calls, written letters or attended health care town halls, according to America’s Health Insurance Plans, the major insurance industry association.
AHIP, which opposes the public option, sent a memo to employees earlier this month with a list of “town hall tips.” The memo stresses that the employees stay calm and courteous, addressing members of Congress as “Congressman” or “Senator,” and saying thank you.
The town halls are an opportunity “to strongly push back against charges that we have very high profits,” Karen Ignagni, AHIP’s president and chief executive officer, told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s very important that our men and women…calmly provide the facts and for members of Congress to hear what these people do every day.”
AHIP insists it supports some measure of health care reform, and has resisted being demonized by reform supporters, including Congressional Democrats.
A spokesman balked last week after Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Bart Stupak (D-MI) sent letters to the heads of 52 insurance company, asking for detailed information about executive pay, retreats and profits. The spokesman called the letter a “politically motivated fishing expedition.”
