WASHINGTON, April 28 (UPI) -- Senior advocacy group AARP, the American Cancer Society and the American Diabetes Society have launched a campaign against a Senate bill they say would undermine states' ability to ensure older citizens can afford insurance and to require coverage for mammograms, diabetic supplies and other services important for health.
"A lot is at stake here," American Cancer Society Chief Executive Officer John Seffrin said during a conference call this week.
He was explaining the groups' first-time decision to jointly launch what he said would be a costly campaign to fight the bill involving print ads in 18 states, direct-mail marketing, e-mail alerts and lobbying visits. "This bill is fatally flawed," Seffrin said.
The Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act, sponsored by Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., and Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Conrad Burns, R-Mont., would allow groups -- particularly small businesses -- to form insurance pools and purchase association health plans (AHPs) that are exempt from most state regulations.
The bill is expected to be considered during the first week of May, dubbed 'Health Week' by Senate Republicans, as part of a series of health bills on the agenda.
The freedom from regulations, the bill's supporters say, would enable insurers to offer lower-cost plans that small businesses and the self-employed -- who make up a large chunk of the uninsured population -- could afford.
But, according to the groups launching the ad campaign, state regulations are the only source of many important consumer protections in the insurance industry.
State regulations limiting what insurers can charge older beneficiaries would largely fall by the wayside if the bill passes, AARP CEO Bill Novelli said, reducing seniors' access to health benefits and making them more expensive to employ.
"Older workers want to stay in the workforce," Novelli said. "This bill sends the wrong signal."
Screenings like mammograms and colonoscopies are also guaranteed by state laws, Seffrin said.
"Ensuring access to cancer screenings and treatments is critical in the nation's effort to reduce cancer deaths," he said. "This bill would do more harm than good by undermining the critical work our volunteers and state legislators have done to ensure coverage for lifesaving mammograms, off-label prescription drugs and other benefits that help detect and treat cancer."
For diabetes patients, said Lynn Nicholas, CEO of the American Diabetes Association, passage of the bill could mean astronomical insurance rates and no coverage at all for life-saving supplies like test strips and medication, resulting in more amputations, blindness and death.
"We estimate 6 million Americans would lose guaranteed coverage," Nicholas said. "They would have no options other than emergency-room visits and other episodic care."
Other groups have already voiced their opposition to the bill. Attorneys general from 39 states signed a letter this week to the Senate arguing that provisions reducing states' ability to sue insurers would "erode state oversight of health insurance plans" and cause states to face "higher health care costs as the health care system treats a growing number of consumers in crisis."
The insurance commissioners of more than a dozen states have raised similar objections.
Consumer advocacy groups have said the bill will encourage broad coverage with few benefits that will swell the ranks of underinsured individuals whose insurance does not really provide them with affordable access to care.
The realities of the marketplace, however, make opponents' concerns largely overblown, Enzi spokesman Craig Orfield told United Press International.
"The whole reason for the bill is to address the growing and chronic issue of uninsured Americans," he said. "We think if the waiver of mandated benefits is a means to get more people with basic health insurance, it's a worthwhile exercise.
"There's no guarantee that because of the waiver there will be a rush among insurers to deny coverage state-based mandates require now. Consumers make choices about what insurance policies they buy. It's not likely hard-working folks will buy insurance that doesn't give them coverage they need."
The requirement that each insurer offer two plans, one of which must be in line with the basic state employee health insurance plan in one of the five most-populous states, also means that not all association health plans will be bare-bones, he said.
Moderate Republicans in the Senate have indicated they will not support the bill without changes, raising the possibility that a tamer version will be ultimately approved.
Even if changes are made, however, it is unlikely that the bill will gain the groups' support.
"We believe this bill is beyond repair," Seffrin said. "It's hard for us to imagine changes to the language that would make this OK with us."
A bill establishing AHPs while leaving state jurisdiction largely intact has been proposed by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and enjoys the support of the American Cancer Society and the American Diabetes Association, but AARP CEO Novelli said his group has reservations about the bill's expense and partisan sponsorship making it difficult to pass.
