Insurance Industry Distributing Town Hall Talking Points That Bash Public Option
Yesterday I told you that the top insurance industry group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, has no plans to stop trying to turn out as many people as possible at town hall meetings during the August recess.
Now AHIP is distributing a new set of talking points for use at these meetings — ones that bash the public insurance option, one of the principles Obama has articulated for reform. These “August Recess Talking Points,” as AHIP calls them, say:
*Health plans strongly believe that now is the time for comprehensive, bipartisan health care reform that enhances affordability, improves quality, covers all Americans and puts the health care system on a sustainable path.
* However, we also share the concerns that employers, providers, and patients have raised about the significant unintended consequences of a new government-run plan. A government-run plan would dismantle employer-based coverage, thereby violating the shared commitment to ensure that those who like their current coverage can keep it. The government run plan would also add significant liabilities to the federal budget.
AHIP keeps saying it favors reform, and insists it doesn’t want visitors to town halls to be disruptive. And there’s nothing wrong with AHIP encouraging participation and distributing talking points.
But the simple fact is that the insurance industry has a tremendous financial stake in whether a public plan becomes a reality. And the industry is not only telling people to go to town meetings, but also telling them how to voice their opposition to a public option.
Bottom line: It’s indisputable that the industry is orchestrating public opposition to one of health care reform’s most important components.
(H/T Mike Allen)
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Because too many Chris’s are showing up I’m going to add “The Fold” after mine. Just to keep people from getting confused.
Perhaps at some moment in the near future we will learn health industry propagandists disrupting town hall meetings are actually paid operatives being bused into districts in which they do not reside merely to rough up our duly elected representatives and other unassuming American citizens. I do hope our current crop of journalists (or are they merely media personalities at this juncture?) can ferret out any skulduggery by any vested interest that is eroding our democratic discourse and lay it out in the light for all Americans to see! -Kevo
Quick question — is anyone having trouble with the site? Slow loading or difficulties commenting or anything like that?
I am. But it’s all over the net today. Not just this site.
@Greg:
1. Every once and a while the comments don’t post for me (but I think it might be my computer).
2. Any chance at a ‘preview’ button?
3. Another problem with the site is, not enough people read it.
4. Lastly, I’m glad for more comments, but it’s a shame that it seems like politico commenters have started to make their way over.
Yes, I’ve noticed very slow loading of pages for the past day or so. The header appears, then it just sits there waiting for the article to appear.
Nope…
On a side note.
I was listening to Randi Rhodes last night driving home on 1050 Air America here in the D.C. area and she was interviewing an individual who was very knowledgeable regarding the reconciliation process. They both came to the conclusion this Health Care Reform should not go through the reconciliation process because of the Byrd Rule and how Republicans could use it to strip so much out of the final reform that it would be a shell of what it went in as.
Just something to think about when you hear talking heads suggesting reconciliation.
BBQ: I’m working on getting us a preview function, as well as threaded comments. thx for your patience, all…
Well, so much for the trolls who claim that these Town Hall demonstrations are just people who are upset. They aren’t. It’s the insurance industry that is upset – not average folks.
Greg: I haven’t been having any issues.
“It’s indisputable that the industry is orchestrating public opposition to one of health care reform’s most important components.”
And … ?
@tena: “so much for the trolls who claim that these Town Hall demonstrations are just people who are upset. They aren’t.”
Except that Gibbs, for one, disagrees with you: “Yesterday Robert Gibbs said he doesn’t “doubt” that some are asking “honest questions about the direction of the country.”
I am an ordinary citizen and I am upset with the proposal, yes we have things to fix in this country. But it seems to me with this we are using a nuke to solve a smaller problem.
“we are using a nuke to solve a smaller problem.”
It might be helpful if you could be a tad more specific. What nuke? What “small problem?” It seems pretty damn clear that the health care crisis in this country is not a “small problem.”
Just what has you so upset, Ordinary Citizen? Hate to see big insurance companies go out of business? Hate to see Big Pharma lose money? Hate to see your anesthesiologist have to sell his 6th “2d home” and his 45′ sailboat?
Tena, why do you hate ordinary Americans? Why do you hate doctors? So much hate. You digital brownshirts are really scary. Your president is compiling an illegal database of American’s whose free speech he deems “fishy”. What is he going to do with this list? Will we expect to see ACORN-coordinated home invasions? That would follow the Mugabe model. Maybe he will just use it to decide who gets audited, that would be more Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon, but still frightening.
You people and your ideas suck.
“Tena, why do you hate ordinary Americans?”
That is absolutely classic, BabyHugo – classic winger reply to anything a liberal says: Why do you hate America?
When did you stop beating your wife, BabyHugo? LOL
how stupid do you think I am?
And babyhugo for the win. Brownshirts were corporate sponsored right wing fascist militias, just like the people who are obstructing the democratic process here. And where were the BabyHugos of the world and what were they saying when it was revealed the Bush Administration was wiretapping the entire world? “There is nothing to fear unless you have done something wrong.” Well, babyhugo, are you afraid that your corrupt and crooked ilk have something to hide? Why does BabyHugo hate America?
I am also an ordinary citizen and I think while this plan is a good idea if it worked, I don’t think it will. I think Government run insurance is crazy. People from Canada work here in the U.S. for our insurance because they have government insurance. Not to mention what program the government runs works? School system, Social Security, not in my opinion. Here is another thought who is going to pay for all of this. Everyone is already hurting financially.
As a registered nurse, with over 20 years in the health care industry…. we need better oversight and less restrictions on state controlled insurance schemes. Open up the free market across state borders..to open up competition among the insurances.
I’ve seen how Government run medicare, medicaid and Veterans hospitals barely function and ration with poor quality and outcomes. NO THANK YOU … to the Obama Health care plan… there are other alternatives. … and this should be gradually worked on, written comprehensively and thoroughly discussed with the American people before being ram-rodded through.
True reform and oversight….NOT GOVERNMENT CONTROL.
It’s so sad. Write me down as another “ordinary citizen” who doesn’t like government intervention in free markets. Problem is, the market isn’t free now. The rates for private insurance are too high because, in part, “usual and customary” medical service pricing via Medicare/Medicaid is not set by market forces but by government fiat. It’s not part of the self-correction feedback loop. This is an economic engineering problem, but it’s not rocket science. It can be fixed without wholesale replacement of the entire healthcare system. And I, in case anyone cares, have no affiliation with the insurance industry (other than regular payment of my excessively high premiums).
BTW, news flash to Mr. Hertz: Some reasonable analysts see fascism as a variant of socialism. The relationship is that of the ideal to the pragmatic. A Marxian utopia would have all needs supplied and all workers happily employed in their designated niche, with only collective enlightenment as the force of coordinated effort. Think Borg. But, as Nietzsche understood, no such ideal is practical. It is a fairy tale. Control a market, and a black market will immediately form to compensate for the inevitable errors of state fiat. The state’s response to the loss of “voluntary” control is to exert power of a more direct nature over the economic rebels. The dichotomy becomes ever more pronounced and hostile, the extent of control ever more inclusive, until we arrive at a state that lives to only serve itself, that feeds itself by the unrewarded labors of its most powerless members. This is the fascism you and I both deplore, the police state nightmare of all the most compelling negative utopia narratives. But it has its roots, not in the traditional ideal of individual rights and dignity, but in an impracticable dream and a false hope. The Germans called it National Socialism. We call it Obamanomics. Please see an illuminating discussion at the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, at http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=507
I got a quote from Here I saved 40% on my insurance policy. It’s worth getting multiple quotes from these guy
Tremendous dispatch but you from to over how to monetize your blog. You can qualify for decent liquid assets with such a huge posts.