AHIP: Please Be Polite

The head of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a health insurance industry trade group, has called on policymakers to “stop demonizing the industry.”

Karen Ignagni, the president of AHIP, Washington, also has restated the health insurance industry’s objections to the creation of any kind of “public plan.”

Ignagni made the comments during a conference call with reporters.

As Congress takes its summer recess, “the country should be in the midst of a transformative national conversation about health care reform,” Ignagni said.

Instead, she said, “a campaign has been launched to demonize health plans and the men and women who work hard every day in their communities to provide health insurance coverage to more than 200 million Americans.”

Ignagni spoke as Democrats were castigating health insurers, Republicans in candidates, and others for their efforts to slow work on health system change legislation.

President Obama has started using the term “health insurance reform” when referring to the health care overhaul effort.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, a former president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo., today had an op-ed article in the Washington Post that singled out health insurers for criticism.

“The current health-care system gives insurance companies all the power,” Sebelius writes in the op-ed.