Thousands of Californians Protest Health Insurance Lobbyists and Support Single Payer

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Ben Malley

The fight for a single-payer universal healthcare system continued yesterday outside of Moscone Center. Inside was the conference of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a lobbying group of more than 1,300 private health insurance companies. In 2006, the organization spent more than $7 million on lobbying efforts. Outside, more than 1,000 people voiced support of State Senator Sheila Kuehl’s SB 840 and Congressman John Conyers’ HR 676, both of which would establish single-payer healthcare.

Also inside was Terry McAuliffe. The former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair and most recently former campaign manager for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential run, spoke between 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. His topic: Decision 2008: The Politics of Healthcare.

A sampling of other speakers at the event included such infamous notables as former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, former counselor to President Bush, Dan Bartlett (who spoke alongside McAuliffe) and former Health and Human Services secretary under the Bush Administration, Tommy Thompson.

While it may not be surprising to some political observers that DLC figure McAuliffe would take a speaking fee and appear before a group of health insurance lobbyists, it is surprising that he would do it while working as Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager – who spent the last 16 months telling us how she would fight the insurance companies and deliver on universal healthcare.

McAuliffe certainly didn’t book this gig in the two weeks since the primary concluded, so picture a scenario in which the inevitable Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic Party nominee on the back of a message of universal healthcare, and Terry McAuliffe appears at the AHIP convention. In being as kind as possible, we would say there is at least an appearance of a conflict of interest.

Meanwhile, in the morning, Mayor Gavin Newsom signed a resolution passed by the Board in support of John Conyers’ HR 676 – which would establish a national universal health insurance program.

Supervisor and soon-to-be Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who authored the resolution and is responsible for San Francisco’s universal healthcare plan, Healthy San Francisco appeared at the rally. He alluded to Barack Obama by asking the crowd if they were ready for change, but then chastised Obama (and John McCain) for failing to support a single-payer healthcare plan.