Health Benefits Coalition

This article is part of the Center for Media & Democracy's spotlight on front groups and corporate spin.

The Health Benefits Coalition (HBC) represents some of the the top managed-care providers in the United States, along with some of Washington's most powerful trade associations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable. In recent years it has spent millions of dollars in advertisements opposing a Patients' Bill of Rights and other patient protection proposals. It claims to be "opposed to big government mandates and believes affordable, quality health care can best be achieved through broader coverage, choice and competition in the marketplace."

HBC members include some of the most powerful trade groups in Washington and made more than $8.6 million in soft money, PAC and individual contributions to federal candidates and parties during the 1998 election cycle, 80 percent to Republicans.

• Aetna Inc
• American Association of Health Plans
• American Automobile Manufacturers Association
• Associated Builders and Contractors
• Association of Private Pension and Welfare Plans
• Blue Cross Blue Shield
• The Business Roundtable
• CIGNA
• Citizens for a Sound Economy
• Council for Affordable Health Insurance
• The ERISA Industry Committee
• Food Distributors International
• Food Marketing Institute
• Health Insurance Association of America
• Healthcare Leadership Council
• Humana Inc
• International Mass Retail Association
• National Association of Health Underwriters
• National Association of Manufacturers
• National Association of Wholesalers-Distributors
• National Business Coalition on Health
• National Federation of Independent Business
• National Restaurant Association
• National Retail Federation
• New York Life
• Premier Inc
• Prudential Insurance
• Society for Human Resource Management
• United Healthcare
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Contact information

Health Benefits Coalition
1201 F Street, NW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20004

Related Resources

• Holly Bailey, Money in Politics Alert, September 13, 1999.
• IssueAds@APPC.
• The Porter Novelli PR firm boasts that it used "polling data" that "shaped and sustained a single message throughout the campaign," which "played a key role in slowing momentum for health care mandates and in ultimately preventing passage of major legislation in the 105th Congress."
• "Patients' Bill of Rights Under Siege in New Corporate Ad Campaign," Public Citizen, March 26, 1999.