Once Opponents, Insurers Back Effort to Make Health Reform Succeed

The health-insurance industry, which spent months campaigning against Democratic health reform, has shifted focus in the wake of its passage, pivoting from opposition to making sure the new law succeeds beyond most expectations.

America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry trade group, has agreed to sign on to a new, 50-state health care reform implementation effort, provisionally called Enroll America, which is being organized by Ron Pollack of the pro-reform group Families USA. "We are participating in it," says AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach. "The goal is to get everyone covered." (Watch TIME's video "The Story of an Uninsured Woman.")

Other parts of the health industry, including drug companies and hospitals, are also expected to join the effort, which will focus on making sure as many uninsured Americans as possible get insurance under the law President Obama signed Tuesday. "We are literally going to try to raise tens of millions of dollars per year for the next several years, beyond 2014 when most of these things get implemented," says Pollack. He says he plans to meet Wednesday with Karen Ignagni, the head of AHIP, to discuss the involvement of insurance companies.

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