Top health insurance lobbyist steps down

Karen Ignagni, who has long served as the health insurance industry’s top lobbyist in D.C., announced Thursday she will leave her post.

Ignagni, who joined the American’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) in 1993, had been a core negotiator throughout the debate over ObamaCare, often putting herself and the insurance industry at odds with the Obama administration.

{mosads}Mark Ganz, the board chairman for AHIP, announced her departure in a statement Thursday, praised her for navigating “intense challenges from the Patient’s Bill of Rights to the Affordable Care Act.”

“With tenacity, intellect and deep policy knowledge, she ensured our industry has a seat at all tables,” Ganz wrote in a statement.

The powerful industry lobbyist will become the president and CEO of EmblemHealth.

Ignagni’s fierce opposition to some of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance rules drew praise from across the industry.

After its passage, she has helped implement the law with relatively few challenges to the administration. Still, she has continued to voice complaints about the law and its less-than-smooth rollout.

“I think there was a strategic decision made to not have a robust cost containment program in an effort to pass the legislation. And I think one of the most unfortunate things that happened during the summer of 2009 was that health reform become insurance reform,” she said in an interview with Morning Consult in 2014.