Third Way's Anti-Public Health Care Memo Drafted By Ex-Insurance Industry Advocates

By
Ryan Grim
Huffington Post
Posted: 06- 8-09 05:45 PM

A health care policy statement causing an uproar among progressives was drafted by two policy analysts with longtime connections to the health insurance industry.

The paper, leaked by the organization Third Way Monday, rejects calls for a public health care option that would compete with private insurance on the grounds that it would be divisive and undermine broader reform goals. The position would be unsurprising coming from the insurance industry, which strongly opposes a public option. But Third Way is nominally a liberal organization and claims allegiance to progressive politics.

The two authors are Anne Kim and David Kendall. Kim is a former lobbyist with Hogan and Hartson, a top health care industry lobby shop. Kendall is a former consultant for the Blue Cross-Blue Shield Association, one of the most powerful insurers in the nation. He is on the board of directors for the Wye River Group on Healthcare, which is funded to the tune of a million dollars by CIGNA, a major health insurance player.

In 1991, according to his bio on the Wye River website, Kendall "helped set the stage for the national health care reform debate by bringing to Washington, D.C. the idea of managed competition, a theory developed by the Jackson Hole Group to achieve universal health care coverage through private health plans. He co-created the Jackson Hole East Group to foster discussion and political interest in managed competition."

Progressives have reacted with fury at Third Way's insertion of itself into the health care debate. Adam Green at OpenLeft.com wrote that if the draft paper becomes the official position he'll work to defund the organization, saying of Third Way: "Enough."

Kim and Kendall did not return calls left on their Third Way voice mail. A spokeswoman for Third Way did not immediately return a call, either.