Uniting Iowans for a Common Progressive Vision

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Small Business Owners Call For Congressional Hearings Into Ahip/U.S. Chamber "Fraud"

Today, small business owners from the Iowa Main Street Alliance joined small business coalitions across the country to call on Congress to hold hearings into the scope and extent of the "fraud" perpetrated by the health insurance industry through their trade group America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

According to a Tuesday report in the National Journal online, in the summer of 2009 six of the largest health insurance companies in the country began secretly funneling millions of dollars to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to oppose health reform. The total amount was estimated to be between $10 million and $20 million. The money was used "to help underwrite tens of millions of dollars of television ads by two business coalitions set up and subsidized by the chamber."

[http://undertheinfluence.nationaljournal.com/2010/01/health-insurers-funded-chamber.php]

"What the health insurance industry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have done is nothing short of committing fraud on the American people," said Chris Petersen, family farmer from Clear Lake. "When a group says one thing publicly - like AHIP claiming to support health care reform - while secretly funneling money to another group to support the opposite agenda, that is fraud. And when an organization claims to speak on behalf of millions, but is secretly controlled by one narrow special interest, that is fraud. And fraud must be investigated."

"These are premium dollars paid by Iowans we're talking about here," said ReShonda Young, Operations Manager for Alpha Express, Inc. in Waterloo. "The insurance companies have taken insurance premium dollars, laundered them through the Chamber, and used them to lobby - in the name of the business community - against the true reform of our health care system that we so urgently need. After this, how can we trust anything the insurance companies or the U.S. Chamber says?"

The National Journal story reports that AHIP began sending the money to the Chamber at the same time that AHIP's president wrote in the Washington Post that "health plans continue to strongly support reform."

Among the questions the small business owners hope to have answered through Congressional hearings are:

• Exactly how much money has the health insurance industry given to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for its advertising campaign against health care reform?
• Exactly how much has the health insurance industry sent to other groups and what are the names of those groups?
• What percentage of the health care premiums they collect has each of the health insurance companies spent to try and kill reform legislation?
• Specifically what ads were paid for with health insurance industry money?
• What other secret efforts has the health insurance industry undertaken to defeat reform in the past?

The Iowa Main Street Alliance is a project of Iowa Citizen Action Network. It is a coalition of nearly 500 small business owners/entrepreneurs/farmers from across the state who are dedicated to giving a voice to small business.

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Contact:

Sue Dinsdale
515-480-3240
sdinsdale@iowacan.org

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