Consumer Watchdog Says Insurers Must Answer Questions About Use of Employees as Mini-Lobbyists i...(ked with getting United Health employees...),Health

Date:9/17/2009

ked with getting United Health employees to lobby Congress on company time with paid company assistance. Employee hours spent on this effort were employee hours not spent on customer issues. This consumption of employee time necessarily leads to even more delays of treatment approvals and is a perverted use of premium dollars that perpetuates customer abuses. What has been the cost of this lobbying project during business hours and how many employee hours have been lost to it?"

The question Consumer Watchdog calls on Anthem/Wellpoint to answer is:

"You developed a similar program to create a fake grassroots employee lobbying force, also presumably on company time. Your employees were specifically urged to oppose a public option to the private insurance market. Yet only a public option has a chance of reducing your bureaucratic waste by forcing WellPoint to compete against a low-overhead alternative. What has been the cost of this lobbying project and why would your customers not consider this the ultimate bureaucratic waste of their premium dollars?"

"Both companies strongly oppose a voluntary, Medicare-style option to which Americans can turn if they are can't get insurance, or are dissatisfied with the insurance they have," said Carmen Balber, director of Consumer Watchdog's Washington office. "Their employee lobbying, on company time and at customers' expense, is meant to prevent any competition that would force them to treat patients more fairly."

Consumer Watchdog is a nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization with offices in Washington, D.C. and Santa Monica, CA. Find us on the web at: http://www.ConsumerWatchdog.org

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SOURCE Consumer Watchdog Copyright©2009 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

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