Californians -- tune in to www.kpfa.org at 12:30 Pacific time -- important petition to stop rate hikes #hcr

Link to the Petition 

Sign the petition - and hear about it today on Livingroom, KPFA 94,1 FM, www.kpfa,org, 12:30-1 pm Pacific time. - Ellen Shaffer

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Carmen Balber, Consumer Watchdog Campaign

Date: Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 3:13 PM

Subject: 500,000 signatures! Blue Cross CEO Attacks

To: ershaffer@gmail.com

When an insurance company CEO criticizes your ballot measure to Wall Street

investors, you know they're worried about *our signature

gathering*

.

CEO Angela Braly, head of Blue Cross parent company WellPoint, told

investors yesterday that California already has plenty of oversight of

health insurance prices and doesn't need our ballot measure. Tell that to

the 600,000 customers of Anthem Blue Cross in California who will pay $100

million more when their health insurance premiums go up on May 1st.

These massive hikes come at the same time that WellPoint is reporting

profits of more than $800 million for just the first three months of the

year.

How can a company with that kind of profits justify raising rates on so

many vulnerable Californians? It doesn't have to justify anything! That's

the point of our ballot measure.

*Click here to join the 500,000 Californians who have already signed the

petition to stop these unjust and unfair rate

hikes.*

Our ballot initiative makes health insurance companies open their books and

prove why they're raising rates. If they can't, they'll be barred from

making excessive premium increases.

Help us show Ms. Braly and Blue Cross that we won't stand for year after

year of double-digit rate hikes -- *Click here to download and sign the

petition today!*

We already have the support of over 500,000 Californians for our

initiative. But we need your signature today to make sure we reach the

November ballot. *Download and sign the petition

today!*

We have two and a half weeks left to collect at least 250,000 more

signatures. *Will you join us by signing the

petitionor

spreading

the wordtoday?

*

Thanks for all you do,

Carmen Balber

Consumer Watchdog Campaign

PS. If you have already signed, please consider letting your friends know

about the movement on

*Facebook*,

*Twitter*and

*through email*

.

  ------------------------------

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Justify Their Rates, a committee of consumer advocates with major funding

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 [image: empowered by Salsa]

**

Link to the Petition 

--

Ellen R. Shaffer, PhD MPH

Co-Director, Center for Policy Analysis

San Francisco Presidio

P.O. Box 29586

San Francisco, CA 94129-0586

Phone 415-922-6204

cell: 415-680-4603

ershaffer@gmail.com