Health Insurance Industry Challenged to Debate Best Way to Control Costs and Improve Quality

BOSTON/Government Center - Protesters gathered at the offices of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans in downtown Boston to protest waste and abuse by private health insurance companies and challenge health insurance industry leaders to a debate about the future of reform in Massachusetts. Patients health care professionals and insurance plan subscribers frustrated by red tape and inefficiency signed a letter requesting the debate citing its opposition to state and federal level reforms that would provide working families with secure affordable health care coverage even if they get laid-off change jobs or work part time. The action concluded with the symbolic cutting of a giant red tape that ensnared patients and health care professionals by a "Medicare for All" rescuer. Massachusetts Jobs with Justice supports improving and expanding Medicare to cover everyone. Health insurance premiums have increased eleven times faster than workers wages. Employees' share of the premium cost for a family plan has increased more than 35 percent over the last five years. While workers are paying more their insurance plans cover less. The number of underinsured U.S. adults -- people who have health coverage that does not adequately protect them from high medical expenses -- has risen dramatically from an estimated 16 million in 2003 to 25 million in 2007. In Massachusetts where everyone is now required to buy insurance private insurance companies are refusing to pay for services needed to treat common ailments and are increasing premiums for people with family histories of health problems. The industry is leading the opposition to any increase in assessments on employers who do not provide health insurance and opposing improvements in the scope of coverage that must be included in health care plans. Last week protest rallies in eighteen cities across America were timed to coincide with a national meeting of the health insurance industry in San Francisco. The Boston action was postponed until June 26 because of the Boston Celtics victory parade. More details about the June 19 rallies can be found on the Health Care Now! Website at: www.healthcare-now.org The event was organized by Massachusetts Jobs with Justice's Health Care Action Committee that links workers' struggles against insurance cost shifting and cuts in health care services to help build a larger movement for comprehensive reforms. It was sponsored by: the Alliance to Defend Health Care Boston Raging Grannies Boston Liberation Health Group Boston Chapter National Writers Union Boston DSA Health Care for Mass Campaign MassCare Mass Jobs with Justice Physicians for a National Health Plan Socialist Party of Massachusetts Tufts American Medical Students Association United Electrical Workers Women's Universal Health Initiative. Rand Wilson is Communications Coordinator for the AFL-CIO Organizing Department's Center for Strategic Research Bookmark/Search this post with: Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Newsvine Facebook Google Yahoo Technorati