Insurers Royally Played Obama  In the months after President
Obama’s inauguration, he and other administration officials held
more than two dozen secret meetings with top insurers and the
major pharmaceutical groups. He met with registered lobbyist
Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance
Plans, the major private insurer’s industry group, on March 5, 6
and 11, May 11 and June 30. The meeting with AHIP and the other
industry bigwigs was followed by a much public and much
ballyhooed pledge by the private insurers and the
pharmaceuticals to plough tens of millions of dollars into an ad
and PR blitz to back Obama’s health care reform plan. They
solemnly and very publicly assured that they’d work closely with
Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus and his five other
gang of five cohorts on the Committee to not be the hard headed
obstructionists they’d been for the past six decades to getting
health care reform passed. Obama bought their pledge, back
patted them for their spirit of cooperat