Its clear to many that hundreds, perhaps even thousands of paid bloggers are poisoning the healthcare debate, pushing the overton window right and trying to make the ruling factions non-negotiable (and unacceptable) outcomes seem acceptable or even pre-ordained (and resistance in the form or real change futile).
Obviously, this is a terrible outcome because 101,000 Americans die each year of preventable deaths due to our barbaric habit of keeping healthcare costs artificially high by denying care to the sick who are unable to pay. But, this reality distortion system is expensive to maintain. This post is about the legions of paid bloggers who toil in secret, making Americans think that their politicians care (only a few really do) and that they "have the best health care in the world".
Meanwhile, the rest of the world looks on in amazement.
Their Kool-Aid is really something, huh?
How do they do it? Hint: With a hat tip to the cognitive sciences, they have found a good model in researcher José Halloy's work with robotic cockroaches.
First, its important to realize that the paid bloggers must not be monolitic. There are probably at least several big firms involved, but there are also lots of smaller organizations, some may even be free-lancers who think mistakenly that they are working for "Health Reform" (Celinda Lake style)
The goal is CONFUSION and PARALYSIS and PREVENTING UNIFICATION AROUND COMMON GOALS.
These are some of the things that I think their campaign focuses on..
1.) Attainable goals: They don't have to prevent any or all "reform" at all, just real reform. So they just have to prevent single payer (a Medicare like plan that covers everybody, not just the marginalized poor, and is paid for through taxes)
2.) They prefer no change, but intentionally vague time wasters like public option, even, would be an acceptable detour for them as long as it's designed to fail. For example, adverse selection will make swift work of any plan that is for the sick only, or any that doesn't "steal their core market", (which it won't because of the huge cost of healthcare for all without cost control.)
3.) By funding different groups with different agendas, and a bewilderness of fake posters with wildly different slants on the same issues, they not only shift the window right, and away from affordability -towards "coverage" and insurance centric reform, (which means having both quality and affordability will be impossible) they also create confusion, which leads to paralysis. (Consultants have recommended that affordability and quality, relative to the civilized world, be avoided in discussions.)
4.) Real health reform around the world has typically required cooperation between the left and right to enact it. In a cost environment like that in the US, single payer would be required to make healthcare actually affordable, requiring rollbacks in costs, so single payer its especially important. Change requires realizing that the system is currently hopelessly corrupt and designed to prevent care, and requires that that politicians be somehow compelled to work in everybody's best interests, which would only happen in an atmosphere of true national outrage. So they win if they keep left hating right and right hating left. To do this, they masquerade as members of both groups and then bait the other side.
5.) Its important for paid bloggers to "smell right". So, they have established idiomatic patterns that they have used successfully to blend in with communities. They pretend to support single payer. They claim to have sick children. They say that the perfect is the enemy of the good, etc. But, underneath it all, their goal is to stop affordable healthcare from ever becoming a reality.