In the most important health reform reporting (at least since my earlier piece on this subject; lol) of the August silly (by which I mean somewhere between batshit insane and brownshirts) season, ThinkProgress has connected the specific dots between AHIP and their corporate lobbyist friends and the various channels and front groups and astroturfing that have been getting all the attention for the past several months. Much of it is connected to the corporate consulting firm "Democracy Data & Communications" which is a link, conduit, connector for much of the behind the scenes public relations media gaming and astroturf. It is sort of a one-stop shopping for corporate badness:
- aetnavotes,com (Aetna), healthactionnetwork (WellPoint), humanapartners (Humana), ahipadvocacy (AHIP)...
- Freedom Works, Freedom Watch, Amercicans for Prosperity, Patients United, kochpac and other Koch and Abramoff offspring...
- phillipmorrisusaactioncenter and tobaccoissues (Altria), etc.
- Chamber of Commerce...
One not so small thing that the invaluable (and therefore to be ignored by the mainstream media) ThinkProgress piece misses, is that it is not at all surprising that the insurance industry and the Chamber of Commerce are completely together on this. As former and repentant head of corporate communications for CIGNA (the country’s fourth-largest insurer) Wendell Potter pointed out, at the lobbyist level they are all fronts working for each other.
In theory, the economic self interests of the insurance companies would seem to not necessarily be the same as those of the members of the Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business (small business lobby) and Business Roundtable (big business lobby), to say nothing of the tobacco industry.
Unfortunately in the real world it is not that simple. For one thing inside the beltway, at the political and lobbying level, the interests of the actual grassroots membership of the organizations may not take priority. The people and major funding and control of the organizations is subject to the same sort of capture as we bemoan of some progressive organizations. The right-wing all-taxes are bad, all regulation is bad, all oversight is bad, all-government is bad (except for crony contracts and handouts), Norquist-Delay-Armey-Koch wing remains in cross-connecting control. Regardless of members in theory divergent interests. Plus there is the reality that right wing ideology of the members may trump their own businesses interests. And there is the fact that in this financialized world, these business are run by interlocking boards and investment groups.
Just how malevolently bad is the mainstream reporting on this? Well the same day as the ThinkProgress piece, which pointed out that even the Wall Street Journal had already previously reported that the insurance industry had actively mobilized 50,000 of it employees to work against health reform, we get a pathetic sob sister whine of what sounds like a public relations planted script in the sometimes not terrible NY Times. Boo f*&king hoo to that all those employees are being upset that they are being made out to be villains, just because they are choosing not only to engage in murder by spreadsheet, but to go out of their way to defend it against the barest minimum of civilized reform. Apparently Kevin Sack can't tell when he is being played by an organzied PR campaign any better then Ezra Klein.
For real reporting check out Lee Fang's ongoing corporate malfeasance series at ThinkProgress and Igor Volsky's health series. There you will actual reporting instead of silly and false apologetics.
Meanwhile, as a single payer advocate I can't help but think how wonderful it was that the smart responsible respectable insider folks (thought that they had) pre-negotiated with AHIP and corporate powers that be so that it would be smooth sailing this time, without any sort of well funded torrential disinformation campaign (just like 1993-94... and by just like I mean that the Clinton's thought they had it all pre-negotiated with the insurers, business roundtable and chamber of commerce too). Because we all now how much worse it would have been if, god forbid, single payer had put forward as the actually cheaper, easier to understand, better, actually leaves you with the real choice of any doctor you want proposal. Why even a Republican party official from Georgia can endorse that.
Meanwhile some would say that the insurance companies have already won.
Which is not reason to still not keep fighting for the strongest versions of public option and an exchange open to all in 2009, while still also fighting for real reform which remains single payer.
