Health insurer Cigna Corp., with national claims headquarters in Bloomfield, trimmed its federal lobbying in the first quarter, a year after Congress debated and then passed the massive health care overhaul, The Associated Press reports.
The Philadelphia insurer spent $280,000 in the first quarter of 2011, a 30-percent drop from last year’s first quarter and an 18-percent decline from the final quarter of 2010.
Cigna lobbied on the Medicare Advantage and Part D prescription drug programs and the extension of a Medicare support program. It also lobbied on issues tied to taxing employer-provided health benefits, according to a disclosure report filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives on April 19.
The health care overhaul aims to provide coverage for millions of uninsured people but it also imposes a host of new restrictions on insurers. Cigna lobbied on that and several other acts when it spent $400,000 in the first quarter of 2010.
Cigna is the fourth-largest publicly traded health insurer based on enrollment. It operates health care, group disability and life segments in the U.S. It also sells individual insurance in several countries and operates an expatriate business that covers people living outside their home countries.
