A media specialist who shares roots with Affordable Care Act foes is taking the communications helm of AHIP, tasked with defending an industry in transition and often under scrutiny for narrow networks and premium affordability.
Brendan Buck, until early May the press secretary for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), joined America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) as primary spokesperson and vice president of communications.
"Brendan's experience and skill set will allow him to hit the ground running on day one," AHIP's longtime president and CEO Karen Ignagni said in a media release. "He's an effective communicator who knows how to tackle complex policy issues and skillfully navigate an ever-changing healthcare and media environment."
As a communications staffer for House Republicans since 2006, a press secretary for Boehner since 2011, and a one-time spokesperson for vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, Buck has been on the frontlines of the GOP's war against the Affordable Care Act and the Obama Administration in general.
As recently as late April, Buck was defending Boehner's position that the ACA should be repealed and replaced in a Twitter exchange with a Roll Call reporter. In late March, as the feds were extending the insurance exchanges' open enrollment through a "special enrollment period" that avoided the ACA's March 31 deadline, Buck wrote on Twitter, "Tonight Obamacare officially became a parody of itself."
Now, though, he'll be the face and voice of a trade group that is generally supportive of all but a few parts of the ACA. It's a quick transition from criticizing the law to explaining the insurance industry's efforts to make most of it work and defending unpopular, but largely health reform-driven trends like rising premiums and narrow networks.
Buck is not necessarily an ideologue -- by some measures, his former boss John Boehner might be considered a moderate Republican -- and the regulation of insurance is a bipartisan issue in many states and among some lawmakers at the national level. There are a number of issues on AHIP's agenda that could be grounds for deals between Republicans and Democrats, such as ending the insurance premium tax and sustaining Medicare Advantage funding.
The insurance tax in particular, applying for the first time in 2014, is something that the industry is just coming to grips with. As AHIP continues its "End the insurance tax" campaign, a total of $8 billion is set to be collected for this year from most commercial, Medicare Advantage and Medicaid health plans.
Buck, for his part, "couldn't be more excited for the challenge," as he said in a media release. "This is an industry going through an unprecedented transition, and health plans need as strong a voice as ever as they seek to provide Americans affordable, quality private coverage."
Buck is replacing Robert Zirkelbach, who recently left AHIP after seven years -- including the tumultuous days of the ACA debate and votes -- to lead communications at PhRMA, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Like Buck, Zirkelbach had roots witt Midwestern Republicans, originally coming to Washington to work for Iowa Republican Representative Jim Nussle.