Demonstrators Protest Outside Health Insurance Trade Group Meeting

October 26, 2009

HEALTH CARE REFORM NOW! – Courtney Jenkins-Atnip, a 31-year-old Tennessee woman, speaks at a press conference in Washington, DC, about her own health insurance horror story. (Photo credit: Luis Gomez)

Hundreds of members of AFSCME, other unions and health care reform advocacy groups demonstrated last week in Washington, DC, outside a hotel where a private health insurance trade group discussed defeating reform measures now before Congress.

“They made it clear this morning … they want to continue to deny our care and to hike our premiums,” said Richard Kirsch, national campaign director forHealth Care for America Now! (HCAN), which organized the Oct. 22 anti-insurance industry rally.

Kirsch was referring to America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), which represents 1,200 health insurance companies nationwide. At the opening of its two-day conference at the Capitol Hilton, their lobbyist, Steve Champlin,declared that “there was no reason Republicans should ever vote for this thing” because it would be “giving comfort to the enemy who is down.”

While the demonstrators protested outside the hotel, Kirsch conducted a press conference inside where seven families told their own health insurance horror stories. Among them was Courtney Jenkins-Atnip, a 31-year-old Tennessee woman who suffers from Crohn’s disease.

She said her insurance company, UnitedHealthcare (UHC), denied coverage for an additional doses of what she called her “miracle drug” even though her doctor had prescribed it.

UHC approved the medication after Jenkins-Atnip fought the insurer. By then, however, her condition had deteriorated so much that she required intravenous feeding and major surgery, at an additional cost to UHC of $750,000.

“The reason I’m here today is that, although I don’t look sick … I’m sick and tired of health insurance companies getting between me and my quality of life,” she said.

Jenkins-Atnip and the other speakers added their signatures to a letter addressed to AHIP president and CEO Karen Ignagni. It challenged Ignagni to face them in person to hear their stories. That letter is also the basis for a print ad that appeared in several Capitol Hill publications last week.

Each of the speakers said they favored a public option in a health insurance reform bill.

Check out this post on the AFL-CIO blog about the rally and learn more about why America needs to reform health carehere and here.