Thursday, April 3, 2008

Rep. Morgan Carroll comes out swinging against the insurance lobby

In general I prefer an aggressive stance in politics and if you're going to take on the insurance industry you know they will be coming back hard against you. So why not strike the first blow and publish the names of the insurance lobbyists in Colorado and the large dollar amounts paid to them by the industry. The information is all public domain through the Colorado Secretary of State's website, it's just that most people would never bother to search for and compile the data.

Pols reports,

Rep. Morgan Carroll greatly upset insurance lobbyists today by sending out a press release with attached records of hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to them in 2008 (follows), just as debate was beginning on her bill regulating health insurance premium increases.

We hear the response to this very personal slap, intended to highlight the outsize amounts of money spent influencing policy in favor of the status quo vs inceases in premiums well exceeding the rate of inflation, was equally pointed.


The press release states in part,

The insurance industry has spent more than $1 BILLION on lobbying activity from 1998 - 2007. (http://www.opensecrets.org).

In just the first two months of the 2008 session (Jan & Feb reporting) the insurance industry had already spent $188,000 in lobbying just in Colorado. That figure is expected to increase dramatically by session end. There are dozens of insurance lobbyists in Colorado. (See attached).

Consumers should have a right to know where their premium dollars are being spent.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

More people need to be concerned with this topic. I'm a little surprised at how little noise has been made in the past...

My husband's health insurance rate went up over $100 per month last month. That is just outrageous!

Steve Balboni said...

Insurance goes up and up and up every single year, far out pacing inflation. Yet every time someone talks about regulating the industry they cry and claim that any new regulation will cause rates to go up.

They're already going up so I don't see any harm in trying something different. No need to continue giving into their extortion.