Interest groups weigh in on reform: AHIP opposes it; Unions offer support

Politico: With the clock ticking toward an important health reform vote, major interest groups "are drawing lines in the sand and warning lawmakers that their vote will leave a mark. The groups are blasting a final round of ads into targeted districts ... and, in some cases, are threatening to support — and, more important, fund — challengers if members of Congress vote the wrong way. The strategies vary widely in size and level of menace. On the right, the approach is firm and somewhat diplomatic. On the left, there are few subtleties." Among the organizations promoting the plan are the SEIU,the AFL-CIO and MoveOn.org, while Americans United for Life and the National Federation of Independent Business are working against it (Catanese, 3/19).

TPM LiveWire: "America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) remains opposed to the health care legislation, saying it does not address growing medical costs," the group said Thursday. Among its concerns with the bill are a lack of cost containment, a premium tax, some of the market reforms and cuts in the Medicare Advantage program (Bellantoni, 3/18).

The Associated Press: The AFL-CIO "agreed Thursday to endorse the Obama administration's health care overhaul bill," despite concerns about its tax on high-cost insurance plans. "Union leaders on the AFL-CIO's executive council voted virtually unanimously to support the plan and said they would aggressively lobby undecided Democrats." The union recently accepted, though reluctantly, a change "that would index the tax to the Consumer Price Index instead of the CPI plus 1 percent — a move that would be more expensive for many union policies over time" (Hananel, 3/18).

---

This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.