Talk:National Federation of Independent Business

Health Insurance Industry Funding
The nation's leading healthcare insurance industry lobby, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), contributed $850,000 to NFIB in 2011 to repeal a provision of President Obama's healthcare legislation. By routing this difficult-to-trace funding through NFIB, AHIP was able to re-frame the issue away from big insurance, allowing their more politically popular ally to frame the provision as an attack on small business owners, according to The National Journal.

The targeted healthcare provision would impose a tax on healthcare premiums as of 2014, costing the insurance industry approximately $100 billion over the next decade. The NFIB's opposition to the provision included lobbying legislators on the state and federal levels, and to push state legislators to pass resolutions opposing the tax.

AHIP made a similar backdoor contribution to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce when President Obama's healthcare reform was being considered, The $100 million contribution "allowed insurers to publicly stake out a pro-reform position while privately funding the leading antireform lobbying group in Washington," The National Journal wrote.

AHIP and the NFIB announced a collaboration in 2011 to fight the tax on healthcare premiums, stating they were "partnering to get out the facts about the impact the premium tax will have on the cost of coverage and to build bipartisan support to prevent it from going into effect in 2014. The two organizations will commission research, educate policymakers, and raise awareness through new media." Businessweek states "Some in Washington call this message-laundering," since small businesses tend to have a better reputation with the public than a monolithic insurance company lobbying for tax exemption. It exemplifies how deeply NFIB has embedded itself with special interests and industries attempting to weaken the Affordable Care Act.

NFIB was the lead plaintiff in the failed judicial challenge to the Affordable Care Act that culminated in the Supreme Court's National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius decision on June 28, 2012. NFIB joined the lawsuit in 2010, and received $3.7 million from Karl Rove's group Crossroads GPS. "NFIB’s positions on other issues, such as tax rates for the wealthy, often echo the Republican Party line," Businessweek notes. Wendell Potter, author of the book Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans, states the insurance industry "has known that it can typically rely on the NFIB to carry its water." "It was an organization that had the perception of representing small business and it really was representing the interests of the insurance industry." NFIB received over $10 million in large donations in 2010 and 2011.