Lobbyist ready for feverish effort

If anyone could make or break President Obama’s health care agenda, it might be Karen Ignagni. The Democratic former union official and firefighter’s daughter is also the unlikely face of the powerful health insurance industry. As president and chief executive officer of the trade association America’s Health Insurance Plans, she is the industry’s top Washington lobbyist.

Ms. Ignagni is such a formidable advocate that when she went head to head with industry-bashing filmmaker Michael Moore on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” she emerged not only unscathed, but with Mr. Moore seconding some of her points.

Now, with the prospect of a congressional health care overhaul looming, Ms. Ignagni’s role is more important than ever. It’s a moment for which she has long prepared.

She and her board at the trade association foresaw three years ago that 2009 could be a year that health care would top the agenda, and they decided to craft a plan.

For months, Ms. Ignagni has been fleshing out their proposal bit by bit at congressional hearings, ensuring maximum attention.

The plan would achieve President Obama’s goal of universal health coverage through a regulated insurance market. Insurers would agree to significant concessions, such as not charging more to people with pre-existing conditions. In return, they want to quash a government-run insurance plan that Mr. Obama supports but that Ms. Ignagni fears would put private insurers out of business.

Although Congress may not embrace all her proposals, Ms. Ignagni can claim notable success in positioning her industry as an ally of health care change, not its enemy. That’s a 180-degree turnaround from where the industry was during the health care wars of the Clinton years.

Not only are health insurers at the table, they’re sometimes driving the debate, as with the White House announcement this month that the health industry would cut its own costs by $2 trillion to further Mr. Obama’s cause. Ms. Ignagni was a key architect.

“She’s gifted at anticipating what issues are likely to be,” said George Halvorson, chairman of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and the insurance association’s immediate past board chairman. He credited Ms. Ignagni with orchestrating the board’s preparation for the health care debate.

“The fact that we sat down and wrestled with all of the issues on underwriting and so forth was genius on her part,” Mr. Halvorson said.

But as publicly constructive as the insurance industry’s role has been so far, a giant question mark remains: What will Ms. Ignagni do if Congress produces a bill she doesn’t like? Will her group try to kill it, resurrecting “Harry and Louise”-style attack ads that proved so devastating during the Clinton years? That could delay a health care overhaul until another administration takes over.

Liberals fear the association is already preparing the wrecking ball. Ms. Ignagni refuses to say how it would respond to an unfavorable bill.

“We’re how many weeks away from seeing whatever is proposed? So no responsible person could answer a question like that,” Ms. Ignagni, 55, said in an interview.

“The people who are working on this issue, even in areas where we have differences, are very thoughtful, have the right objectives, and we have a long history of working with them,” she added. “So we’re going to give them the courtesy of thoughtfully responding to what they propose.”

Ms. Ignagni didn’t work for the insurance group that produced the “Harry and Louise” commercials. Indeed, the man most responsible for them, Chip Kahn, who’s now at the Federation of American Hospitals, went up against Ms. Ignagni when their two insurance lobbies merged in 2003, and she beat him out for her current job. Mr. Kahn declined to comment for this story.

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