Anti-Reform Group Unveils “Death Star” Ad Targeting Rockefeller’s Public Option Amendment
Conservatives for Patients Rights, the well-funded anti-reform group run by controversial former hospital exec Rick Scott, is spending nearly half a million bucks on a new ad training all its firepower on a single legislative agenda item: Jay Rockefeller’s amendment inserting a public option into the Senate Finance Committee bill.
The group tells me the ad represents their “death star” strategy for the public option. CPR believes the defeat of Rockefeller’s amendment — widely hailed on the left — will kill the public option for good, because if it’s defeated in committee it won’t be revived later. A CPR official sends over the spot, which will run nationally for a week on CNN and Fox:
The ad, a rejiggered version of an earlier one targeting Obama, recycles much of the debunked or questionable scaremongering you’ve heard about the public option. “Tell Congress to drop their government-run public option plan,” the ad intones.
A CPR spokesperson, Brian Burgess, confirms the ad’s sole goal is defeating Rockefeller’s amendment, which is expected to be voted on in coming days; the campaign is likely to end after that vote. “It’s entirely focused on the Rockefeller amendment,” he says.
CPR’s assumption is that if the public option is defeated in committee, it will be politically all but impossible to revive it when the Dem leaders assembles a final Senate bill and when Dems attempt to reconcile that bill with the House proposals in Congress. That’s a debatable scenario, but it’s certainly not out of the question.
“We believe that the defeat of the Rockefeller amendment will deal a mortal blow to the public option,” Burgess says, adding that the Finance Committee defeat of the public option will be akin to the final implosion of a “death star.”
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Here is another shocking video from the librul hollywood types rooting for the insurance industry. (hopefully the linky is embedded here)
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/041b5acaf5/protect-insurance-companies-psa?rel=player
What shameless shills !!!
There’s no guarantee that HCR won’t rape your children.
There’s no guarantee that HCR won’t burn down your house.
There’s no guarantee that HCR won’t make you a Muslim.
There’s no guarantee that HCR won’t dance the hokey-pokey and turn itself around.
There’s no guarantee that HCR won’t invade another country for no reason.
There’s no guarantee that HCR won’t wear white after labor day.
There’s no guarentee that HCR won’t stop Republican fear mongering.
There’s no guarantee that HCR wouldn’t discriminate based on shoe size.
There’s no guarantee that HCR won’t harvest your organs for use in zoo animals.
But this ad DOES guarantee that conservative groups think the American people are morons, and are willing to try and scare the **** out of people to further their own greed-driven agenda.
Tell those pieces of garbage to suck it next time they send you over anything and dial 1-800-eat-**** every time the public option or Govn’t mandate and threat of a trigger activating twists them into keeping their rates lower over the course of the next 100 years.
How can the Rockefeller amendment pass when Conrad has already said he will vote against a public option?
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/conrad-says-hell-vote-against-the-public-option.php
I co-sign BBQ’s comment.
Waste of money IMHO. Finance committee members have already made up their minds and now they’re haggling over all the ammendments including Rockefellers.
Does anyone have the figures for what was the total amount that Private Health Insurance Companies, took in last year, or in 2007, and how much of that amount was paid out to cover medical bills. In other words how many hundreds of billions did they skim off what they collected, and why is that a good thing, since they are not in the medical profession, and never treat a single sick person?
what’s interesting here is that the group thinks this is the end of the line for the public option…
sbj, everyone can change their minds.
Exibit A.
Palin was for the bridge to nowhere before she was against it.
And, who can forget.
Glen beck was for the bank bailouts before he was against them.
The “REAL STORY” is the $700 billion that you`re hearing about now is not only, I believe, necessary, it is also not nearly enough, and all of the weasels in Washington know it. Beck circa Sep. 2008.
One Insurance Company with a membership of 20 million, purged eight million from their rolls, because their number crunchers uncovered that forty percent of the twenty million were too expensive to keep insured.
The current pool of uninsured will break down at the same ratio, just about, so there will not be any bonanza of more healthy people coming on board. It will contain the same risk factors, as the population that is now covered, and most likely will actually contain a higher percentage of people at risk, because of not having been under medical care in the past, and of having the poor eating habits of the poor, etc.
There is no profit vein to be mined from that group, and that is why the Government Tax money, to the tune of 900 Billion is being shoveled out to the Private Insurance Companies, to pay around Six hundred billion in medical coverage.
That is worse than the Private Option.
Why are the same people who are so outraged at having gifted 700 Billion tax dollars to Wall St, not now outraged at the proposal to gift hundreds of billions in tax Dollars, to The Private Health Insurance Ponzi Operators. It is a rhetorical question, so I am not asking you to provide the answer. I am just pointing out the irony of the situation.
The Teabaggers do not want the government spending tax money on healthcare reform, but when it comes to shoveling hundreds of billions into the coffers of the Private Insurance Ponzi Operators, The Teabaggers are keeping their bags dry.
I forget.
What happened to those couple of Death Stars?
@mike: Funny!
But I think you also have to deal with Bill Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Max Baucus, and Tom Carper. Unless I am mistaken – these are all probable NOs to a triggerless public option?
The name “Conservative for Patients” rights is the biggest oxymoron I’ve ever heard. If they had any concern about patients they would not be fear mongering and trying to scare patients in this way.
Why don’t the dems run an ad asking about how a conservative could ever be for patient’s rights. They are for free markets companies regulating themselves which is how we got terms like pre-existing conditions, recision etc…
“what’s interesting here is that the group thinks this is the end of the line for the public option…”
What group? I most definitely do not think the public option is dead. I believe the president wants it, I believe the progress caucus wants it, I believe the House wants it and I believe Americans want it. I believe we’ll get it, too.
@liam: The private insurance companies are salivating at the thought of an individual mandate without the availability of a public option. They’ve already conditionally agreed to such a “reform.”
Maybe its just me but I think CPR just laid a major egg with this ad. Not because of the fearmongering per se but because of the wording. They keep saying public option over and over again to the point that after 30 seconds and the ad went off the word that actually stayed with me was option. Kinda kills the rest of the message no?
Anybody else notice that?
Is there another member of Finance on the democratic side who would possibly vote against the bill and kill it in committee? that would be the best thing to happen.
The Max Baucus Bill proposes that the Government spend $900 billions, to subsidize the Private Insurance Providers, for not being allowed to purge their rolls of higher risk members.
Knowing that:
Which one of the following choices would you prefer to see the government opt for?
A)Subsidize the Private Insurers to the tune of 900 billion, out of which they will use between 250 and 300 billion for overhead, and profit taking. In other words the Government will get around seventy percent bang for their buck, and enrich companies that provide no medical treatment to anyone.
B)Have government put that 900 billion into the Medicare fund, and allow every one who wishes to enroll in Medicare, regardless of what age they are, or what their medical condition is.
At the present time, Medicare administration costs are 4%, compared to up to 30% by Private Insurance.
Either way, your tax dollars are being spent. Do you really want to see a lot more of them being wasted to support the huge salaries, bonuses, and profit margins of Private Insurance companies, that are not in the medical profession, or would you rather see those hundreds of billions being paid to reimburse medical professionals, for having actually treated sick people?
Either way, the money is being spent.
“Is there another member of Finance on the democratic side who would possibly vote against the bill and kill it in committee? that would be the best thing to happen.”
That is a good question.
But I do think the Baucus Bill as it came out of the committee is dead because no one was going to vote for it – no Republicans, no majority of House Democrats and without them, the bill goes nowhere. Once they’re done cutting it up and pasting other stuff in, there’s going to be very little Baucus left.
@SquareState: I’m not sure of anyone’s vote but possible NO votes (public option without trigger) on the Dem side in Finance cmte include Conrad, Bill Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Max Baucus, and Tom Carper.
Liam – please – I’m not an advocate for not having a public option. I answered your questions about pools the best I could, using experience and what common sense I have left after 7 years on political boards.
What my real desire is is single payer. But I also like to deal with things as they are.
I’m tired of the red herring about waiting for care. The current U.S. system is far from blemished in that debate. Depends on your geographical location and the specialist you’re visiting.
Once I had to have tendinitis in my right knee checked out to make sure it wasn’t something serious.
I made an “appointment” with the Orthopod and waited 1:45 in the waiting room. Other patients (no pun intended) told me this was not unusual. I was finally shown to the examination room where I sat another 20 minutes before I simply got up an walked out much to the consternation of the office manager who berated ME for not keeping an APPOINTMENT.
The point I would make is how ignorant our citizens are when they respond to these insurance industry claims about long waits, rationing, lack of choice etc. The Insurance PR machine has done a terrific job of demonizing other nation’s health care systems with the help of pimping politicians like Roy Blunt of MO who tried to spread such a whopper his hometown newspaper called him on it.
I do not profess to have peer reviewed data at my fingertips or tons of personal experience. I do know I have asked EVERY Canadian I meet about the horrors of their medical system. They universally respond with a kind of bemused frustration at how woefully uniformed American are about other nationa’s health care systems. I correct them by pointing out we’re not so uninformed as much as brainwashed by a multibillion dollar industry and their paid politicians.
rukidding = I’ve already pointed out that when I got a bad mammogram, I went to a surgeon who at the time was the premier breast cancer surgeon in Dallas and I waited almost 2 weeks before the biopsy and when I went back for my followup, he kept the whole waiting room waiting for over 8 hours. People were having take-out brought in.
You don’t call up a doctor’s office in this country and get whatever you want immediately. In the first place, most people have to have prior oks from their insurance companies.
You know – pre-approval? That dosn’t always get approved?
Jeez.
I agree that waiting times right now can be pretty bad. (I suggest Kaiser Permanente if it’s available to you.)
I am wondering, though, do any of the current bills do anything at all about increasing supply? If we suddenly have millions more insured but don’t increase the number of health care workers, how is that going to impact wait times?
@sbj
Conrad never actually said he would vote against the public option. A local reporter paraphrased him at a constituient meeting as saying he would vote against “government run healthcare.” Some might have found the combination of paraphrasing and ambiguity reason for caution, but Brian at TPM was on a bit of a kick about finding “tells” that the public option was dead and took this as one of them and thus further transliterated someone saying he said he’d vote against “government run healthcare” as that as “I will vote against the public option.”
Conrad subsequently made a point of saying “I never said I’d vote against the public option.”
I don’t know what he’ll do and I don’t put anything past him because he’s been a concern-trolling saboteur throughout this process. But there’s no reliable evidence he ever said he’d vote against it.
“how is that going to impact wait times?”
I don’t know, but you know what? I’m willing to wait if it means someone who needs care is getting it. I’m not so willing when the doctor I’m waiting on is in his office with his architect, which has happened to me before. For an hour and a half.
This I am certain off:
We have waited over forty years for one good shot at real reform. A Bill without a Public Option is a farce.
It will subsidize the Private Insurance Cabal, at the taxpayers’ expense.
It will not drive down costs.
It will require an expensive government oversight department, to police the Insurance leeches. Good luck with that. You will have lax oversight, in exchange for future jobs or lobbyist positions.
It will make the Insurance Monster Radio active, and more powerful and entrenched than ever before. If you are afraid to tame the beast now, then stop pretending that you will bring it to heel, in the sweet by and by, when it has growing into a federally subsidized monster, that will have offices in all the right districts, so they can play the keeping jobs in your district, congressman game.
What is the one thing, about this whole reform debate, that scares the Insurance Monster? Answer; The Public Option. That is all that they are afraid of. It is our silver bullet. Are we going to use it to subdue the Monster, are or we going to be Barney Fife, and keep it in our pocket?
Of this I am certain. Sign a bill that contains no Public Option, and subsidizes The Insurance Monster, with hundreds of billions of tax dollars annually, and we will never get another chance to get real Healthcare reform, and why should we, because we would not deserve another chance.
Now is the time. We have all the levers of power.If we do not pass real reform now, when the time is ripe, and we hold all the major offices, then we will never do it. Never ever. Do not lie to yourselves, and pretend that we will be more bold and courageous in the future. If we do not use the silver bullet now, we never will.
If President Obama signs a bill into law, that will give $900 Billions to The Private Insurance Sector, then he can never again claim that he is for real financial reform, and restraints, that will prevent the “too big to fail” Ogre from returning again and again. You can not claim that you will stop that from happening, after you have signed a bill that will put hundreds of billions of tax payers money into the coffers of The Insurance Ogre.
This I Am Certain Of.
@Steve – I agree. I believe he has said that there’s no way the public option can garner 60 votes in the Senate, but that doesn’t mean he would vote against the PO in committee. I DO believe he would vote FOR the PO if it came to reconciliation but his vote in cmte is not clear. It will have been very odd of him to work so long at writing a bill without the PO only to turn around and amend it immediately believing that it will fail to get 60 votes in Senate … ?
@liam
A huge part of the “overhead” of private insurers you’re decrying is spent doing stuff that will be forbidden or made pointless by the bill. Combing records for undisclosed preexisting conditions of applicants or claimants, marketing, and other stuff whose goal is to try to manipulate the pool of insureds so that it is younger and healthier than the population at large. Insurance bureaucrats will surely be motivated to try to find something else to do with their time once their jobs are redundant and even if they’re cut, private insurers will likely try to put at least some of the savings in their own pockets. However, the nominal nonprofits, like most states’ BCBS organizations, have no shareholders and their executives can only add so much to their salaries before they draw the ire of their state’s insurance commissioners.
As for the for-profits, a public option would help wring those savings out of their pockets faster, but if they’re going to compete with the nonprofits like BCBS (however horrid they may be), the money will be squeezed out eventually.
Sixty votes are only for to end a filibuster. Fify one votes passes a bill.
I dare any Blue Dog Democratic Senators to vote against cloture, which would be voting to kill all Healthcare Reform. Put the public option in, and make the Blue Dogs face the music. Are you willing to break ranks, and support a Republican Filibuster. I bet they will not do so. The most vulnerable of them that are up for reelection, can then vote against the actual bill, because all we need are fifty one votes.
@sbj….it seems like you are the only conservative on this blog to bring up sensible difficulties with health reform…
“how is that going to impact wait times?”
A legitimate question…but not really germane to “insurance reform” which is REALLY what this so called “health care” reform is truly about.
A correlary to your question would be, “What happens when folks in the emergency rooms are left twiddling their thumbs because they no longer treat snotty noses, flu, and all the other illnesses that would go their primary care physician IF they had insurance?
Again though…the 800 lb gorilla in TRUE health care reform (after we take care of insurance reform) is procedure driven medicine. How are we going to control cost as long as many specialists are compensated by the procedure.
As DR. Deepak Chopra has pointed out..if you go the emergency room now with simple chest pains that could be indigestion you’ll face a good chance of getting and EKG…stresss test…and if you fall into the hands of the wrong cardiologist a cardiac cath and angioplasty. I have a very moral brother-in-law..a cardiologist who left an established practice because of the number of unnecessary cardiac caths that were being performed. Remember free enterprise…that’s where the money is…more and more procedures!!! Ohhhh no not “socialized” medicine!
rukidding – “) is procedure driven medicine. How are we going to control cost as long as many specialists are compensated by the procedure.”
Have I ever told you how much I love you? I love that comment.
Rick Scott owns this clinic all across florida called solantic. They rip people off hundreds of dollars, and now they are partnering with major hospitals around florida and urging them to turn people away for basic services I know there is one jacksonville, gainesvill, orlando and i think tampa area (I say organize a march- see how it makes him feel)
Ok Folks,
I have had my say on Health Care Reform. I do not understand why we are allowing ourselves to get pushed around, to the point where many of us are starting to beg for a half a loaf, when we currently own and operate the only bakery in town.
I may return later, and if I do, it will be to get back to discussing Afghanistan.
That is a ticking time bomb, and I wish Greg would devote some threads to the subject.
I posted some of my perspectives about it, on earlier threads today. I hope that we can begin to discuss that massive problem, in a serious manner.
@Tena…thanks…I think this really struck home for me the last time I visited my sister. When my right wing brother-in-law foregoes hundreds of thousands in compensation annually and he and two buddies go through all the hassle of cold starting a ne practice
I LISTEN when he tells me procedure driven medicine is a HUGE problem. He is another righty Doc who is for single payer at minimum and morally confesses we made need…OMG sbj/QB/Scott..hang on here…SOCIALIZED MEDICINE…this from a Doc making big big bucks!
This phony ad has been running for over a week now.
It’s funny no one noticed. I guess it’s REALLY having an impact.
rukidding and tena: You both might be interested in a comment and link I posted on another thread. It’s an article in Time about so-called retail clinics.
“When it came to fees, the results were even more dramatic. For the various kinds of services studied, the average visit to a retail clinic cost $110, versus $156 for urgent care and $166 for a family doc. As for ERs? A cool $570. While even $110 for a clinic visit seems pricey, that is only the average for the three procedures studied. Minute Clinic, the industry leader with 514 outlets, charges just $62 for a minor illness or injury exam and $20 to $66 for a wellness or prevention visit.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1919754,00.html
I think that if we adjusted the employer tax credit and gave it to the employee so that we had more money in our pockets and more control that would make us users more aware of what exactly we were paying for. Then we might see costs go down as we price compare and choose to pay for only what is really necessary, and we might see more retail clinics. If we could go to a retail clinic for the flu and some antibiotics and pay only $77 we might not need the all-inclusive coverage our employers currently give many of us. If we had more of these types of clinics available then more uninsured would forgo the emergency room and they would be able to afford the retail clinic bill. How about a prepaid card for the poorest amongst us so they could purchase only what they truly need at a clinic instead of at an emergency room?
Between deductions for Medicare, what our employer pays for insurance, what we pay ourselves combined with co-pays, the average person spends $1.7 million dollars on healthcare expenses. $1.7 million. I have very little doubt that if you gave that money directly to me that I could obtain health care and insurance. I’m no expert but everything I am hearing so far – from both sides – just sounds like so much poop.
“I went to a surgeon who at the time was the premier breast cancer surgeon in Dallas and I waited almost 2 weeks before the biopsy and when I went back for my followup, he kept the whole waiting room waiting for over 8 hours. People were having take-out brought in.”
That’s a shame. But perhaps being the premier surgeon had something to do with his waiting room? Government payment systems wouldn’t change anything about this. In fact, they likely would make it worse. Supply and demand have something to do with it after all.
CPR, Rick Scott, thumbs down, downer, downest.
It’s not really that hard to understand the desire to nuke the public option… sure, the “masses” of the Teabagger movement may not want government money going into anything, but the folks who move the needle aren’t necessarily of the same belief. They’d love to see lots of government money go into healthcare – so long as that money goes into a private company that they can invest heavily in and make craploads of profit. There’s no profit in the public option.
Lhsjpr I want to say – thank you for this!