Word: supporters
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...During an Aug. 4 conference call with reporters, Karen Ignagni, lead lobbyist for the industry, described the Democrats' marketing push as a new campaign "launched to demonize health plans" and "the same-old Washington politics of 'find an enemy and go to war.' " Said Ignagni before declaring insurers' support for reform: "Attacking our community will not help get anyone covered...
...return for the support of one potential foe, the pharmaceutical industry, the Obama Administration reportedly made a side deal to limit drug spending cuts in any health-care reform bill to $80 billion. According to the New York Times, the Administration reaffirmed the deal after the drugmakers expressed concern that Congress might push for even bigger cuts...
...Americans earning up to 400% of the federal poverty line, the same level of subsidies in both the House and HELP bills. The Senate Finance Committee, the lone remaining committee with jurisdiction over health care yet to produce a bill, hasn't announced which subsidy level it will support. But in an effort to win bipartisan backing and scale back the cost of the bill, it is reportedly considering limiting subsidies to Americans earning just up to 300% of the poverty line...
...Looking only at reform elements like age bands, universal mandates and subsidies, one can easily see just how potentially fragile the insurance companies' support really is. "It's like a ball, and when you start pulling on one piece of string, a lot of it unravels," says Diane Rowland, executive vice president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan, nonprofit health-policy research organization...
...problem with health insurance," says Karen Pollitz, a health-policy expert who has studied the shortfalls of HIPAA, "is it's really complicated and fixing it part way almost never works." Some skeptics of the insurers' support this go-round believe that's what the industry is counting on, even if its advocates and defenders insist that's just what they are working to avoid...