Insurer Pressured Employees To Fight Public Option
Video shows UnitedHealth exec slamming Connecticut proposal’s “artificially low premiums” and pushing employees to lobby against the bill.
[Ed. - NYPAN firmly believes that a single payer system such as the NY Health Act, covers more people, better and at lower cost than a public option would.]
by Julia Rock
Health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group held a webinar to pressure its rank-and-file employees to mobilize against efforts in Connecticut to create a state-level public health insurance option, according to a video of the presentation obtained by The Daily Poster.
“It does sound like it’s just an option. But the problem is that it would exist on an unlevel playing field with private insurance,” Mishael Azam, a UnitedHealth Group vice president of external affairs, told employees on the February 24 webinar. “The public option really is the path to single-payer, where there is really no private option left.”
Azam slammed the public option proposal for potentially providing Connecticut residents “artificially low premiums.” She encouraged employees to call their legislators and express their concerns about Connecticut’s public option proposal, which is designed to create more insurance competition and reduce health insurance premiums for consumers.
“If you agree with anything that you’re hearing today, taking action and contacting your legislator really makes a difference. It did make a difference in 2019,” she said, referring to when the insurance industry successfully killed a previous public option effort in Connecticut.
UnitedHealth spokesperson Eric Hausman told The Daily Poster that employees’ attendance at the February webinar was voluntary. “While we do not discuss internal meetings, educational webinars on issues of importance to our industry and our communities, such as the proposed public option in Connecticut, are completely voluntary,” he said.
“They Think They Are Screwed”
The nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealth saw its profits boom last year during the COVID-19 pandemic, as people largely avoided going to the doctor and put off elective procedures, activities that cost insurers money.
The company reported more than $15 billion in profit in 2020, an 11 percent increase over the previous year. In the year prior to that, the company made headlines after its CEO netted more than $50 million. Now, UnitedHealth is taking action to protect its windfall, as lawmakers around the country weigh reforms to address soaring health care costs.
In Connecticut, where UnitedHealth asked regulators to approve large increases in premiums for this year, the company and other major insurers have undertaken a massive campaign to block a new legislative attempt at passing a state-level public option.
Hartford, the state capital, is a major hub for health insurers, which account for 25,000 jobs, according to the industry. The state has long been a battleground between the health insurance industry and those fighting for reforms.
In 2009, Connecticut passed a law that paved the way for the state to establish a public option. Six months later, though, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and the state never set up its own insurance option. Former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman played a key role in killing the public option provision in the ACA, refusing to support the bill if it included a public option.
Connecticut lawmakers proposed public option plans in 2019 and 2020. Once again, legislators in the Democratic-held state house are considering public option legislation, backed by state Comptroller Kevin Lembo, and the chair of the Senate insurance committee Sen. Matthew Lesser. The bill passed the Senate finance committee on Thursday, and will receive a vote on the floor of the Senate before going to the assembly.
The legislative proposal to create a public option in Connecticut would authorize the state comptroller to offer the state’s current health care plan for public employees to certain individuals, small businesses, and non-profit employers. The so-called Connecticut Partnership Plan is currently administered by Anthem.
Additionally, the proposal would raise funds for subsidies for those people by instituting a tax on health insurance companies, similar to the Affordable Care Act’s Health Insurance Tax. The Health Insurance Tax, which cost Connecticut health insurers $300 million annually, was repealed in 2019, and the repeal took effect earlier this year. The new tax would cost insurers in the state $50 million.
Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont opposes the legislature’s bill, and has instead proposed his own health insurance reform plan, which would tax insurance companies to fund more subsidies to buy health insurance on the state exchange.
Front group campaigns backed by the health insurance industry are working to kill the legislation, and they are spending millions of dollars to kill state-level public option legislation being considered in Colorado, too. They argue that if states set up even modest public option plans, it could be the start of a slippery slope towards a single-payer system where there’s no need for health insurance companies.
Hausman, the UnitedHealth Group spokesperson, additionally argued in an email that “public option proposals will disrupt current coverage platforms by reducing access to providers, shifting costs to small businesses, increasing taxes, and eliminating jobs.”
Tom Swan, the executive director of the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, a group advocating for the public option legislation, told The Daily Poster that health insurers “are so threatened by this because if a public option passes in the insurance capital of the United States, they think they are screwed. And we hope that’s true.”